Our journey started in 1979 when local families, unable to find the right type of provision for their disabled children, decided to set up a charity to help other families in the same position. From the beginning, this included sharing autism advice and building a supportive community. As those first children grew and developed, so did the charity, starting to support adults and delivering a wider range of services.
The name ‘Hamelin Trust’ was adopted in 1991 and the charity continued to grow, launching residential services and contracting with Essex County Council and the NHS to deliver social care, while expanding its neurodiversity support for individuals and families.
Since 2022 Hamelin has modernised, recognising that the people we support need different things from us than in pre-covid times. We’re ambitious about the impact our charity can have and challenge ourselves to continually improve, doing more for more people. Our work reflects the realities of living with autism and other conditions, ensuring support is relevant and meaningful.
Today we offer services that aim to integrate people in their communities, tackle loneliness and develop skills that reduce current and future reliance on social care services. This includes tailored learning disability support, as well as guidance such as autism communication tips to help individuals and families feel more confident and connected.
We know that individuals have widely varying life goals and that what works for one person will not always work for another. We’re very serious about playing our part in reducing social inequity and offer bespoke support in the fields of health and employment, where neurodiverse and disabled people are especially disadvantaged.
Personalisation is important to us because we know that it’s important to the people we support. To this end, we’ve recently started offering Individual Service Funds (ISF), that allow the person to contract directly with us to design the service that they need. ISFs are flexible, reviewed very regularly and allow us to adapt the support we offer as the person’s needs change, alongside connecting people into a wider autism support network.
We also offer respite opportunities, as we understand that families can only be resilient when the carer and person being cared for get adequate breaks from daily life, and the opportunity to explore being themselves away from the family unit.
As we move into the future Hamelin will continually redefine care, strengthening our neurodiversity support and continuing to provide trusted support for the people we serve.
Meet the team
Hamelin is driven by a team of committed, inquisitive and creative staff and volunteers, each using their distinct skillset to improve the lives of the people we support through dedicated neurodiversity support services.
The majority of our team work directly with autistic individuals and people with learning disabilities, offering practical neurodiversity support tailored to each person. They do this in different ways, depending on the needs of the people they support, whether this is through mentoring, training, personal care, or providing trusted autism and learning disability advice and guidance.
Our work also helps individuals and families navigate living with autism and learning disabilities, including sharing helpful autism communication tips and connecting people to wider autism support networks. We also have a small team who provide recruitment, training and fundraising support and manage the efficient use of our resources, maximising the impact for our people.
We are always looking for compassionate and talented individuals to join our growing and diverse team. We have current vacancies, so if you would like to explore opportunities as an employee or volunteer within a trusted support network, please do drop us a line, we would love to hear from you.
Meet our Senior Leadership Team
Ru Watkins
Chief Executive
Shoenagh Mackay
Director of Care
Andy Archer
Director of Income Generation and Communications
Grace Osborne
Director of People
Meet our Trustees
Graham Woodham
Chair of Trustees
Steve Nightingale
Trustee
Laura Bryant
Trustee
James Wilson
Trustee
Jamie Gaiger
Trustee
James Bishop
Trustee
Aaron Pottle
Trustee
Laura Marshall
Trustee
Our Mission
To build caring and compassionate communities for autistic people and people with learning disabilities.
By empowering and supporting individuals they can live the life they choose.
Our Vision
By revolutionising care for autistic people and people with learning disabilities, we can build a positive and integrated community, that allows them the opportunities that they are entitled to. Creating life experiences that make a real difference to the quality of their lives and those around them
Our CQC rating is ‘Good’
Whilst the support within each of our services differs, our commitment to high quality, personalised care for people with learning and physical disabilities is unwavering.
How we do things
We are community
We put autistic people and adults with learning disabilities at front and centre of everything we do. We work together with our people and their families to truly understand their needs and wants, to make a real difference.
We enhance lives
We treat people as individuals so we can empower them to do the things they are passionate about. We create opportunities for growth and foster a culture of innovation and bravery in our communities. This allows everyone to live their best lives, now and in the future.
We think differently
We are passionate, intelligent and not afraid to do things differently. We are not defined by the limitations of systemic care provision and do not accept the status quo. Our sole focus is to create better lives for those we support.