Q1 2023 | 15 that they need to live independently. For 11 years, Bedspace has worked with educational charity, ASDAN, to provide accredited skills in three key areas: learning, employment, and everyday living. This partnership with ASDAN is crucial to ensuring service users can work towards enjoying independence and wellbeing. In 2021, Bedspace was proud to award 200 ASDAN certificates to its service users. This year, Bedspace made the exciting move into the children’s residential sector by launching its first children’s home in Staffordshire to help more vulnerable people. The home is now officially open after gaining Ofsted approval, with the inspector describing it as a “lovely, welcoming and family-like home”. The home will provide a safe and nurturing environment for children, aged 8 up to 18 years old, with emotional and behavioural difficulties. Importantly, it will provide the children in care with an opportunity to be supported as they transition through the pathway on their journey to independence and adulthood. This new home will act as a blueprint for other children’s homes in the future and is part of Bedspace’s ambition to open five children’s homes in five years. Bedspace is already actively recruiting for a second home, with the team for the first Staffordshire home already in place and raring to go. Throughout a service user’s time at Bedspace, they are regularly assessed to understand if they are ready for independence, as well as for any additional support they may need to get there. Despite Local Authority funding ending at 18, Bedspace continues to support its users after this age as it believes that continued support is the key to achieving long lasting outcomes for vulnerable people. In the last three years, Bedspace has spent approximately £1 million supporting approximately 200 young people post 18. If not for its self-funding of support and accommodation, then these young people would be left unsupported and at risk of homelessness. Bedspace believes it is essential there’s not a cliff edge at 18 where vulnerable young people must fend for themselves. That’s why this year it created a charity, The Bedspace Trust, to raise funds to help vulnerable people post-18. The hope is that this will act as a blueprint for Local Authorities and other organisations in the sector. With a host of exciting new projects and services underway, there is significant growth on the horizon for Bedspace. It is set to increase this number and bolster its property portfolio by 40%in the next three years, partnering with landlords in new regions and in turn creating more jobs across the country. To keep a pace with its rapid growth, it has committed to taking on 100 new staff members in the next two years. This means that the brilliant team at Bedspace will be able to support even more vulnerable people and expand in new and existing regions across the UK to transform more lives. To find out more, visit: https://www.bedspace.co.uk, or contact info@bedspace.co.uk. Contact: Nick Thornhill Company: Bedspace Resource Ltd Web Address: https://www.bedspace.co.uk
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