About Us

Our Company

Because your choice
and control matters

There are things in life that cannot just be ignored. One of such things is the way people who are less able, are cared for or supported. Having worked in the health and social care for years, I got frustrated with the way traditional services were delivered and saw barriers that needed to be broken.

I figured that care and support services should put customers in control of what they are receiving while being creative about it. It was not anything new; the health care system advocates for the personcentred approach to care and support. However, it was the implementation that was lacking. With the passion to make the difference, I birthed Break Barriers in 2009.

From the very first service Break Barriers delivered in 2010 to date, we’ve changed the way care and support are delivered. We are always seeking creative ways to give high-quality support to customers, enabling them access personal care services that cater to their individual needs right in their homes. Delivering on our vision, mission and commitment, we have supported customers to access and participate in a wide range of recreational activities that once seemed impossible.

Families have been supported to have respite while their loved ones were being cared for at their chosen destinations; and young adults have been supported to leave home for the first time without their parents, to their dream holidays, at locations they never imagined.

Understanding the needs of our customers and the difficulty in commuting, we added another service: Support with Transport, a service dedicated to driving customers to their destination of choice with the support of a staff.

At Break Barriers, we work with our customers to support their rights to design services and to access opportunities that people living without a disability or ill health take for granted. Because your choice matters, we celebrate outstanding services, banish mediocrity, Break Barriers, continuously improve and always strive to design your care and support with you—walking our talk in all that we do.

Our
Vision

Our vision is to offer outstanding family oriented domiciliary care/support and recreational services to create a better every-day life for people less able with excellent customer and staff experience.

Our
Mission

Our mission is to deliver high quality designed services to enable disabled customers to participate in activities that non-disabled people take for granted.

Our
Commitment

Break Barriers is committed to providing you with the highest standard of care and support at home or away.

The Break Barriers System

With its excellence approach, Break Barriers is constantly at work throughout the ecosystem of care and support services—including all stakeholders who are crucial to the delivery of consistent value to every service user. By so doing, service users get what they want—the high quality care, support and experience they deserve. This is done by bringing together the three key elements needed to deliver a quality care and support to a wide range of service users: the staff, responsive leadership/management, and our partners. Our system is designed to foster a synergy with these elements to satisfy the increasing demand for personalised quality care and support.

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THE MIND-SET
FOR THE CARE
AND SUPPORT
SERVICE
ECOSYSTEM

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Being part of the ecosystem of care and support services, the understanding and appreciation of your responsibility and accountability to the organisation, to the customer, and to the regulatory bodies is critical. At Break Barriers, we do not just understand this, we do it. The Break Barriers system is how we do it—ready to customise, personalise, and synergise for outstanding services.

Our Management Team

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Andrene Lewis-Longwe

Founder and Managing Director

Andrene Lewis-Longwe brings her over 20 years’ experience in Health and Social Care to Break Barriers. In those years she fell madly in love with being a care giver. With her certification in Management of Care Services and Diploma in Leadership for Health and Social Care and Children and Young People’s Services, she has been shaking the foundations of traditional care and support service delivery for over 10 years. She brings her passion, and caring smarts to building others including the team at break Barriers to do the same and more.

After founding Break Barriers in the Health and Social Care space, she has led the team with Nelson Longwe to provide outstanding personalised care and support services to hundreds of customers who have been less able to live their best lives. She brings her wealth of knowledge and experience in taking one home at a time to ensure that all services meet the highest possible standards and the needs of the customers.

She ensures that the team at Break Barriers are kept informed and motivated to carry on the delivery of the services to the people who are under the care of Break Barriers Ltd. Nottingham.

It’s important to Andrene that she is home after work to spend quality time with her husband. She can be found taking on the grand-mother duties when her 3 grand kids are on school break or visiting, working with her neighbours for a good cause, giving advice freely to anyone who asks for help to support and develop themselves in business, travelling around the world on cruises, or simply relaxing to think of more creative ways to help people Break Barriers.

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Ingrid Christle

Customer Care Service Manager

Ingrid is a natural ‘people person’, ensuring she is constantly aware of the unique needs of our customers, making her a great addition to our team.

Drawing on her several years of experience working across different industries, she has mastered the art of resilience, gained knowledge and is ever driven to absorb, learn and execute swiftly. She loves the challenge her role as the customer care service manager brings, and she creatively engages with customers and their families not only to help then get solutions best suited for their needs, but also supports the Registered Manager in achieving the aims and objectives of Break Barriers—to deliver quality in the service provided to the customers in accordance with the Company’s Quality Assurance Policy.

When Ingrid isn’t at Break Barriers, you will find her spending time with family and friends, gardening, and cooking her favourite dishes.

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Audrey Nkunika

Human Resources Director

Audrey commenced her professional career over 10 years ago in the Health and Social Care sector. She worked her way from ground-up into a director position by starting in the field as a care giver and is one of the pioneers at Break Barriers.

Having been in the field herself for years caring for our customers, Audrey understands what it takes to deliver on the Break Barriers promise. She blends her experience, her diploma in Leadership and Management with double degree in Education and Combined studies to ensure that top talents are recruited, the staff team is provided with an exceptional work experience with benefits, recognition, training, performance management and employee relations in a manner that retains staff members long-term. She also ensures that the Break Barriers’ culture welcomes a diverse population in line with Equality and Diversity Policy of the organisation, while supporting each person in achieving their career goals within the organization.

Since leaving the different roles she has worked in over the years, Audrey has been busy delivering solutions that kept both the staff and the customers happy and satisfied.

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Ropa Muntanga MAAT

Finance Manager

Ropa is the finance manager extraordinaire you wish you found 5 years ago. Whether it be refining your value proposition to reflect your financial targets, or knee deep in the trenches ensuring that all staff get their wages at the end of the month, she brings a wealth of experience that she has spent over 12 years refining.

Starting with the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce as a Business Training Coordinator, she cut her teeth as an Accountant Realign Financial Services Ltd, right after securing her Bachelor of Science in Applied Accounting. Quickly becoming obsessed with growth opportunities in businesses including not-for-profit organisations and finance roles, she then positioned herself to work with CE Security Limited as the Management Accountant and then Break Barriers, where she skilfully manages the finance system of the company ensuring that the ‘blood’ (cash) the company needs to be healthy and thriving keeps flowing in the most efficient way.

Ropa is a member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and outrivals in evaluating the general needs of a business, especially the financial needs and devising new and cost-effective strategies to influence policy decisions at senior management level. She ensures that the appropriate vision and processes are in place to ensure long-term financial viability and that resources are allocated to enhance performance monitoring at all levels.

Outside of her passion for work, Ropa’s other main role is being the amazing mum to her beautiful angel and spending quality time with her husband … and is also pursuing her entrepreneurial spirit and setting up her own successful business.

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Alfred Chalira DipM ACIM

Rota Coordinator

Alfred has an eclectic experience in marketing communications and operations and has done so for many years—a member of the Charted Institute of Marketing with Diploma in Management and leadership, Business Administration and Management. He is known to be a results oriented, hands-on individual with over 20 years of experience and a resounding passion for the coordination of the various assets (customers and staff) of Break Barriers to ensure the smooth running of the company.

Alfred’s rota coordination impact is defined by how he prepares staff and customer rotas; makes certain that the rota is operationalised, while making sure all issues arising are dealt with promptly; identify, prepare and allocate any transport requirements to those responsible; deal with any staff issues relating to their rotas; and support other team members as and when required.

Outside of the Break Barriers’ space, Alfred plays a bit of Basketball, reads books and watches movies.

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Nelson Longwe

Director

Nelson Longwe is one of our Directors and the other brain behind Break Barriers. Starting his career in retail at Sports Direct, with great ambition to make a difference, Nelson has since gained diverse IT and Communications experience in businesses. He caters to the customers with the care and support they need, as well as ensuring that the staff members are well managed and taken care of – more like a General Fitter!

Perhaps it’s his African heritage that drives him in persistently pursuing excellence! Yet. He understands that it takes a collective effort to make the dream work and seeks to carry everyone along in delivering quality services.

Nelson is known for his striving for excellence and having a thorough understanding of the whole picture when it comes to IT and communications, and business processes. His work speaks for itself with successful dealings in business and good reputation within and without the organisation and in the Health and social care space. In his words, “I love my job and the challenges that it brings but all days are not the same. We are still breaking the barriers for our customers to enjoy life.”

Nelson’s passion goes beyond business and directing the care and support affairs of Break Barriers – he also loves playing his well-shined Alto Saxophone, spending quality time with family and friends and travelling to see the many beautiful views in our world!

Our Staff

Break Barriers consists of over 65 dedicated staff that are kind, and compassionate. Each staff is trained to involve and treat customers with respect and dignity; consistently motivated towards continued learning and innovation. For the staff, it is all about first understanding the customers and their needs and then to deliver care and support that are so tailored to meet their needs