The latest member of the Aster family: Enham Trust’s year in review
The merger between Aster and Enham was the right thing to do in challenging times. It allowed Enham to access the larger resources and expertise provided by the Group, helping to protect its 100+ year legacy and continue to provide high quality housing and care, as well as a range of education and employment services to disabled people.
Over the 2022/23 year, the services provided by Enham reached over 6,700 people – including 262 tenants supported by the housing team. 84% of service users said they’d recommend Enham and 93% feel Enham employees are friendly and polite.
Since Enham became a part of Aster, some of the early successes have included:
- drone footage and several surveys have helped us to understand the housing and properties on our estate, so we can make sure they’re safe places to live and work
- a range of repair and maintenance works, totalling £600,000 in investment, were carried out, including:
- work at Michael, William and Elizabeth Houses, including full decoration and new flooring in all internal communal and external areas, where the residents chose the new colours. Replaced commercial boilers and carried out major repairs to the roof
- safety works to the sports hall to ensure it could be accessed and used safely
- fully refurbished six individual flats within Enham’s care homes
- installed railings and completed safety related works at Bradbury House
- safety related works at Cooper Chase supported living accommodation and a chemical clean of external walls.
- a full-time health and safety manager on site.
1,958 responsive repairs were completed by Enham’s in-house team during the year, with seven empty homes made ready for people with a physical and/or learning disability to move into. An additional specialist supported housing officer has been introduced to the team, helping customers access appropriate benefits.
40 residents received person-centred care and support through Enham’s residential care services. We developed a comprehensive action plan and a Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection took place in March 2023. A rating of ‘Good’ was achieved across all five assessed areas: Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led. This has been a tremendous achievement in a short space of time and a significant improvement on the previous inspection. The care team will continue to work hard to make sure we continue to improve our services into the future.
Enham’s ‘Skills2Achieve’ (S2A) initiative offers young people a unique alternative to a traditional college setting. Since September 2022 S2A has supported 75 vulnerable young people to develop skills and confidence to get a job, start apprenticeship programmes or re-enter further education. In March 2023 the service was provided accreditation to ‘the matrix standard’, the Department for Education’s standard that makes sure young people receive high-quality information, advice, and guidance contracts.
75% of young people who took part in S2A functional skills and employment qualifications in the previous financial year went on to find education or employment. Young people have also gained valuable work experience working at Enham Trust’s head office, volunteering alongside staff and residents in our social enterprise, the charity shop and with our gardening team.
Enham’s Strive service, which helps support disabled people into work, gained the Disability Employment Mark (DEM) this year. We were also one of only 10 organisations that piloted Access to Work Plus, a new model of funding and support enabling disabled people who need higher levels of support to get into work.
During the year, Enham 3rd Party Logistics (E3PL), Enham’s social enterprise which provides employment opportunities for disabled people provided 22,000 hours of supported employment. This includes packing and distributing over 729,000 gift packs and dispatching over 25,000 pick and pack orders.
Enham’s Direct Payments Support Services went from strength to strength, supporting 6,244 customers to arrange their own care and support to stay in their own home. This included helping customers with their budget and to employ their own care worker or team of care workers.
Enham also began a pilot of the ‘DP Plus’ Service, helping the large number of Enham customers who are unable to self-direct under their current arrangements and are therefore left with a lack of choice and control in their own care. This model is being developed to counter this inequality by offering personal choice for everyone.
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Enham Trust
