The Lotterywest grant helping West Aussies with Huntington’s Disease

While plenty of West Aussies have hit the Lotto jackpot, Lotterywest’s impact on the broader Western Australian community is where you’ll find the real winners.

Thanks to you playing Lotterywest games each week, Lotterywest grants are helping the people of our State via hundreds of different grants, to the tune of $351.5 million in the last financial year alone!

We’ve been diving into a number of these grants through our Dream State series, and this week we’re looking at Brightwater Care Group.

With an estimated 600 people in WA’s Huntington’s Disease community, Brightwater Care Group is the state’s only specialist service provider – and one of two in the whole country.

And an essential component of Brightwater’s services is their new Piara Waters campus, a state-of-the-art place to call home for those living with Huntington’s.

Earlier this year, a $600,000 Lotterywest Grant went towards communal outdoor garden spaces at Piara Waters, a vital part of the physical and emotional wellbeing for those patients.

The development caters for people with high support needs and co-designed by people with lived experience, family members and clinical specialists. 

Importantly, following considerable feedback, these spaces were made to be accessible in all seasons, encouraging family connections, social participation, and ample opportunities to be immersed in nature.

The new outdoor spaces feature landscaped pathways and themed gardens, planted according to different landscapes (coastal, modern native, bushland, hills, cottage, succulent, shade) providing an important multi-sensory experience.

Accessibility is of course paramount, with grab rails, wheelchair access and raised planters, appropriate exercise equipment, and potting and propagation areas to encourage active participation. 

The communal spaces also feature evidence-based biophyllics design principles. When these are tailored to people with Huntington’s it enables engagement in purposeful, meaningful physical and cognitive activity that has potential to slow disease progression and support improved long term life outcomes.

You can learn more about Huntington’s Disease and the grant here, and for more about how playing lotto is helping make good things happen in the WA community, head to the Lotterywest Dream State Hub.

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This article is sponsored by Lotterywest and endorsed by us. Please see our Editorial Policy for more info.