DW and JOD meet furry friends at Bluebell Dairy!

DW and JOD, who live at Godfrey Care’s Station House service in Rolleston, have a shared love of animals and welcome every opportunity to connect with nature.

With that in mind, the service team at Station House went in search of a local petting farm and found the perfect destination a short drive away!

Run for nearly 60 years by the Brown family, Bluebell Dairy has a wide variety of friendly creatures for visitors to come and meet, from calves, sheep and goats, to chickens, rabbits, ponies, donkeys and guinea pigs. The farm also boasts an ice cream parlour which serves up delicious homemade gelato!

DW and JOD embraced an outing to Bluebell Dairy as they took every opportunity to interact with friends of the furry, woolly and feathered variety. JOD greeted some gregarious goats with a smile and a stroke of their heads while DW got to know some affable alpacas. The pair also discovered fluffy rabbits, turkeys and an impressively horned Highland cow.

After a jam-packed day of animal antics, DW and JOD returned to Station House with plenty of stories to share. There was some talk of adopting an alpaca or two, but for now they’re looking forward to visiting their new farmyard friends again in the near future!

A big thank you to the Station House team for organising such a memorable day out!

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Building Futures, Together: Collaborative Support for the Most Complex Transitions

How Godfrey Care transformed one young person’s journey from long-term hospital care to a thriving life in the community.

At Godfrey Care, we believe deeply that every person—whatever their circumstances—deserves access to support that can give them a bridge to better mental health and empower them to build a future with a better quality of life.

For some individuals, that bridge feels impossibly out of reach. Many have spent years in hospital settings, their lives shaped by restrictive environments that are often more about containment than empowerment. Godfrey Care have become specialists in helping individuals to overcome these challenges: with the right therapeutic approach, skilled multidisciplinary teams, and truly bespoke environments, even the most complex transitions can be successful.

One such transition—a 17-year-old young person who had spent a quarter of his life detained under the Mental Health Act— demonstrates how our specialist collaboration, creativity, and care transformed his future.

A Bespoke Therapeutic Environment

This forward-thinking project began with one simple but powerful mission: to place the young person’s needs, preferences, and potential at the centre of everything.

Working closely with the Local Authority and Integrated Care Board, we co-produced a safe, nurturing, and highly personalised environment that would enable a supported move from a secure hospital to community-based residential care.

Every detail was planned in deep collaboration with health and social care professionals, ensuring that sensory, emotional, and developmental needs were met. Over a structured 12-week transition period, hospital staff and our team worked side by side to build familiarity, trust, and confidence, step by step.

Early Impact: Creating Space for Growth

The support team focused on removing the need for restrictive physical interventions through rapport and relationship building, having the individual’s needs met by people who work tirelessly to understand who they are as a person, and not the label of “a child with challenging behaviour.”

The results of the careful  planning and preparation of the environment and support were both immediate and profound.

After moving into his new environment, the young person presented with significantly reduced risk behaviours and began forming positive relationships with his new staff team. He was especially receptive to female staff—something that had not been possible for many years—and started accepting medication and support from them.

Importantly, he was also able to spend more time with his family, rebuilding connections that became a meaningful part of his progress.

A Transformative Journey

When the young person arrived with us in September 2024, he came by secure hospital transport, reflecting years of intensive, hospital-based care. By June 2025, his achievements speak for themselves:

  • Discharged from Section 3 of the Mental Health Act and fully stepped down from the Intensive Support Team.
  • Welcomed female staff and his mum into his environment for the first time in years.
  • Re-engaged with education, showing remarkable ability and enthusiasm in Maths and English, as well as other areas of learning.
  • Planned, prepared, and started cooking his own meals, enjoying the health benefits and independence this brings.
  • Reduced from a crisis team of 11 clinical staff in hospital to a tailored 3:1 community support package, on his own terms, with further reductions planned.
  • Learned coping strategies and functional communication skills, eliminating the need for PRN medications.
  • Removed restrictive physical interventions entirely, thanks to trust-based relationships and staff who saw him as a person, not a label.

This case is more than a success story. It’s a blueprint for compassionate, creative, and highly specialised approaches. It epitomises our values of being innovative, inclusive, and resilient in support of some of the most complex mental health transitions in the system. It also demonstrates that when teams come together—sharing expertise, resources, and a singular focus on quality of life—young people who were once considered “too complex” for community living can flourish.

At Godfrey Care, we are proud to play a part in rewriting these stories. We don’t just build placements. We build futures, together.

If you’d like to learn more about how Godfrey Care can support complex transitions from hospital to community settings, get in touch with our team for a conversation:

Call  01332 419150 or email referrals@godfreycare.co.uk

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Reds fans LO and CN team up for trip to Anfield!

Many of the people we support are big football fans. Two of our most avid followers of the beautiful game are LO and CN, who live at Godfrey Care services in Burton-on-Trent.

CN is a passionate supporter of current Premier League champions, Liverpool. He recently expressed a desire to visit the hallowed turf of the club’s home in Anfield, so the service team at Field House organised a trip up the M6 to take a full tour of the famous stadium. He was joined by fellow Reds fan, LO, as they took in the sights, including the iconic Shankly Gates. Together, they explored the stands, walked through the players’ tunnel, and even stood beneath the famous “This Is Anfield” sign.

CN was kitted out in his brand-new Liverpool tracksuit and scarf while LO showed solidarity with his own red tracksuit top. At the end of the outing the pair travelled back from Merseyside full of sporting spirits and vowing to return soon, hoping to see more silverware in the trophy cabinet!

LO and CN’s shared love of Liverpool strengthened their friendship, showing how experiences like this can bring people together. With an abundance of social opportunities at Godfrey Care services, the people we support will never walk alone!

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JL and MT enjoy seaside fun in South Wales!

Each year, Godfrey Care’s Ashby House service in Burton-on-Trent organises a summer holiday for two of the people we support. JL and MT both look forward to an annual adventure, and both love the sounds, sights and sea air of a coastal resort.

This year, the two friends decided to take a trip together and picked the Porthcawl in South Wales as their destination. JL and MT were delighted with their choice, taking an instant liking to the lively seaside town and its many attractions.

The Ashby House support team booked a picturesque caravan park which provided the perfect base for exploring the area. Porthcawl’s funfair and arcade were the most eagerly anticipated items on the itinerary, and they certainly lived up to expectations! JL showed off his skills behind the wheel with a session on the dodgems while MT got immersed in VR gaming. In the evenings, JL and MT swapped the dodgems for the disco and showed off some impressive moves on the dancefloor.

Natalia Bloor, Service Manager at Ashby House, said:

“It was great to see JL and MT enjoying a holiday together – it’s really strengthened their friendship, and JL is already getting excited about the next trip! The Ashby House team did a fantastic job planning, organising and supporting everything. We’re already thinking about the next holiday and we can’t wait to see what JL and MT decide to do!”

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Godfrey Care nominated for two care awards!

Godfrey Care are delighted to announce that we have been shortlisted for two awards at this year’s prestigious LaingBuisson Awards 2025 which highlight the brightest and best in the care sector!

We’ve been named as a finalist in the Excellence in Specialist Care and Excellence in Supported Living categories. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony taking place on 20th November 2025 at Park Plaza Westminster Bridge, London.

Godfrey Care Co-CEO, Hayder Atia, said:

“The LaingBuisson Awards celebrate organisations that establish new benchmarks of excellence in the care sector. Being shortlisted for two awards is a huge achievement and well-deserved recognition for the passion, commitment and skill of our incredible teams. Thank you to all our amazing colleagues for their vital work in supporting and maintaining the exceptional standards that made these nominations possible.”

Now in their 20th year of recognising outstanding achievements, the LaingBuisson Awards are assessed independently and objectively, focusing on both the individuals delivering care and their advisors. The audience comprises a diverse array of experts in the UK health and care sectors, with the majority of attendees holding pivotal roles in their organisations.

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