Break Barriers started in 2009, by Andrene Lewis-Longwe. Andrene got frustrated with the way how traditional services were delivered and saw a gap for more creative services that puts customers in control of what they are receiving. Andrene now has over 13 years of work experience in health and Social care services.

Since Break Barriers delivered it first service in 2010, we have continued to support customers to remain at home and access personal care services that is suited to their individual needs; we have supported customers to access and participate in wide range of recreational activities that once seemed impossible; we have supported families to have respite break while their loved ones were being cared for at their chosen destinations; we have supported young adults to leave home for the first time without their parents and we have supported customers to realize their dream holiday at locations they never imagined.

Break Barriers has now added another service; Support with Transport. This service allows you to be picked up from your door and taken to your destination of choice with the support of a staff. See our services page.

Break Barriers will 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 of our very size we can assure you of a personalized, creative, individually tailored and flexible approach.

See our customer feedback page for testimonies and view our link below.

Our Mission

Break Barriers will deliver high quality designed services to enable disabled customers to participate in activities that non-disabled people take for granted.

At Break Barriers we will support your choice while you stay in control.

You can find our full Mission Statement here

Community Based Organization

Because of the popularity for our services, we have grown from a Micro service to a small family run organization within the last 5 years. Within the last 2 years we have focused on building a solid foundation before we opened the doors to more customers.

We have not market our services within the last 4 years but yet we have doubled our customers and staff intake. This is all down to the positive experiences people have had while either using our working for Break Barriers.

At Break Barrier we acknowledged that the right balance between staff support and respecting customer’s choices is vital. At Break Barriers, we believe that good Staff recruitment and management and good Rota planning has been one of the key to our success.

Break Barriers services delivery is still founded upon the same principles that customer's choice and control matters. Our customer's satisfaction is paramount to what we do and we want to continue making a difference to the lives of the people we support.

While working on the right balance, this has helped us to grow our business at a steady and controlled paced to ensure the service quality is not compromised.

Our most recent Care Quality Commission (CQC) continues to speak for itself and it's our aim to sustain such positive feedback from each inspection and customer reviews done. If we get it wrong we will do everything to try and make it right.

Break Barriers has recognized that with growth comes more responsibility and that is why we continue to recruit staff to match with customers demand. Our current Management structure allows us to continue investing in staff and customers satisfaction. We have started to promote our staff members who have been with us from the beginning to more senior roles to ensure the quality is not lost.

The two Directors continue to be actively involved in not only the day to day running of the office but the care that our customers receive in their homes.

We remain focus and continue to have a personal interest in how the service is delivered on a day to day basis. You will still see managers, directors out and about with our customers doing the care and support; and while conducting regular reviews with all areas of service delivery with the customer group.

At Break Barriers we are proud to be a family run business.

Our last CQC inspection rated our services as:

• Good for Caring
• Good for Effective
• Good for Responsive
• Good for Safety
• Good for Well-Led

The Staff

There are now over 20 members of staff at Break Barriers and all staff working for Break Barriers have been DBS checked and fully compliant with regulatory bodies. Most of our staff members have been with us since we opened our doors in 2010. Break Barriers is interested in staff development and so all our staff have either completed up to Level 2 in an apprentice or undergoing the qualification.

This year we have promoted 1 member of staff to a junior management position and we continue to look at the skills our team possess to use them to the benefits of our customers. In doing so staff remains motivated to take on the challenges of the work they are doing in a positive way.

The staff team reflects a wide range cultural and diversity and brings a lot of flavor to the support delivery based on their experiences and back ground.

Andrene who is the Managing Director has over 15 years’ experience working in Health and Social Care.

Andrene started in care as a care support worker, and have worked with a variety of citizens with different needs. Andrene spend time in an assistant manager's role before starting Break Barriers in 2009.

Andrene believes even with such years of experience, there is still more to learn as each person is an individual in their own way and should be treated as such.

In our last CQC report the staff team was very positive about their place of work.

The service was rated Good for wel-led.

Awards

• 2014 Care Quality Commission overall rating for service: Good
• Winner of Nottingham City Council Start up Social Enterprise of the year 2011 awards.