Tanya Abbott, Director of Operations, has been with Brandon since the beginning. Here, she shares her career over the last 25 years: from support worker to director.

Deborah is Brandon’s leadership development coordinator based in Oxfordshire. She makes sure Brandon leaders have access to training that suits them. Here Debbie talks about her own career development.

At some point overnight last weekend (7-8 Dec), you made a conscious choice to commit burglary at our much-loved charity’s care farm, where we support people with learning disabilities and autism. Your actions have caused great distress to them and to our staff, who give so selflessly and whose passion and commitment enables approximately 80 of the most vulnerable people in our society to enjoy the opportunities we provide at the farm.

A parent’s love for their child is all-encompassing, even when that child grows up. This blog shows how great support can make the world of difference. Thank you Chris for being so open about Rupert’s journey in this blog.

Steve is a locality manager for Brandon; he’s worked with us for four years and began as a team leader. He tells us about his journey in setting up a brand-new service for a group of young people in Yate.

Simon was born into a very loving family. Our father was a hard working parish priest, and despite clergy incomes being quite low, our mother has never worked for an income, but always saw her role as full-time mother. We were both cared for so well, and our parents could not have done more to give us both as good a childhood as you could wish for.

Mary is a student, an artist, and she works for Brandon as a Quality Checker. Having been supported by Brandon for the last year, Mary became part of the first group of Brandon Quality Checkers six months ago. Mary is keen to help make sure other people receive the same level of support that she does. And if she can help to improve support generally, that’s even better.

At one flexible support service in Wiltshire, they are keen to enable everyone they support to take part in the sorts of activities that most people take for granted. In December 2018, they took a group of people ice-skating to the largest outdoor rink in the south-west.

Tony began working in the care sector 37 years ago and for the last 25 years he has been supporting people with learning disabilities, autism or both. As support has evolved, he has found he has more time working with people and providing direct support. This enables him to better support individuals to make their own choices, to give them time to do that. The difference time makes is obvious. He explains that one of the gentlemen he supports, Clarence, has gone from saying single words to short sentences.

Some of the people living at one of Brandon’s registered care homes near Bristol came from long-stay institutionalised care, where they were prescribed medication which may – or, crucially, may not – benefit them. STOMP is a health campaign to stop the overmedication of people with learning disabilities and/or autism, and improve their quality of life. Hugh and Sophie are team leaders at the care home – here they describe the life-changing effects STOMP can have…

After working as a civil servant for 25 years, I knew I needed a change. My job had become the most stressful it had ever been. My daughter is a support worker, and one day, she asked me to keep her company at a recruitment evening. I had no intention of applying for a job, I simply went for moral support. I’d always envied my daughter’s job role and how much satisfaction she got from her work. She knew it was something I’d talked about wanting to do, but I never had the courage to do anything about it.

I first met James in 2014. He was 24 years old. Described as having a severe learning disability, autism, and behaviours that seriously challenged, he had spent many years in a long-stay hospital. Any attempt to move him to residential care had failed catastrophically.

Mental health has always been a part of my life. Campaigning and raising awareness around the help that's out there has become very important to me. I know where it can lead when you feel no one understands or can support you.

Hi everyone, this is Peter aka 'George Ezra' here! I am very excited to tell you all a bit about myself and how I won the Dream Fund, so let's start.

Here’s the first blog in our career series. Stuart Robbins, who is currently acting as Head of Quality and Safety, talks to us about his career at Brandon, his roots as a support worker and why he loves his new role.

We recently shared our views on the NHS long term plan which was published on 28 January. We’ve asked some of our staff for their views on the issues that were covered by the plan in relation to their areas of work. One of our team leaders, Heather Arthur, sits on a Health Action Group (HAG) in Gloucestershire which aims to help the NHS deliver better healthcare for people with a learning disability, autism or both.