Our History
St Leonards Place was founded by Russell Martin in April 1993.
The service was established using the ethos of "Wolfensberger normalisation theory" that of the principles of normalisation to offer social care to individuals with a learning disability.
St. Leonards Place set out to enable any potential clients to have access to their own flat based in the local community. These personalised services were to be run as the individual's own home, where the clients would be encouraged to live as normal life as possible within the local community.
St. Leonards aimed to offer a less restrictive living environment which was often encountered within larger group home setting.
St Leonards Place then received its first client from Kent County Council in May 1993. The gentleman in question was given the opportunity to have his own flat situated in Gillingham in Kent where he would live for approximately 17 years.
During the first year of residential care St Leonards Place were approached with the possibility of starting a daycare service. During a short period of market research, it became evident that there was a gap in service provisions for sill living at home but requiring daycare services. In February of 1994, so then this place began to offer day care services to individuals still living within the family home environment and it was this service that would be successfully expanded over several years to offer permanent daycare to a total of 9 clients.
With the expansion of St. Leonards Place Daycare also came an increase in individuals living within their own homes throughout St Leonards place network and a further, 2 residential clients were welcomed over the next couple of years.
As part of St. Leonards Place expansion there was much effort put into staff recruitment and the retention of those recruited staff. It had been the service manager's experience that staff continuity was extremely important to the success of any working service, as all too often in the past social care had been viewed as a career choice which had an extremely high staff turnover of staff.
Over the past 30 years St Leonards Place has successfully retained 50% of its initial staff workforce with multiple staff moving into their second decade and in some cases, third with the company.
With the introduction of the National Care Standards in early 2001 it soon became necessary to review how St Leonard's offered care for the future, requiring an in-depth review of the new policies and procedures contained within the National Care Standards.
By 2001 St Leonards Place had three individuals living in their own flats and a day care service supporting 9 individuals daily housed in three locations throughout the Medway towns.
After much consideration, a decision was made to seek support from other local services in an ever-expanding business category as over the past eight years, St Leonards Place was not the only care service offering independent living and therefore a business decision was made to no longer offer day care services and to concentrate on independent living via permanent care.
After streamlining its services throughout the 2000s it soon became apparent that with the introduction of the national care standards, social care would never be the same again and as time went on and in order to continue to offer a quality service to both clients and staff alike St Leonards Place would have to condense it efforts further into the service you see today that of a single home base offering a flat to each of our permeant clients with a staff ratio fitting to the needs of everyone currently living and working at St Leonards Place.
Looking back on the past 30 years St Leonards Place is an evolving and award-winning social care service that has been pioneering in the services it offered long before any talk of "white papers".
We continue to support a client group which has been in place for 25 to 30 years and successfully have given lifetime placement and career opportunities to everyone involved in our service something we should never forget and be eternally proud of at this time.
St Leonards Place History article was written in January 2024 by Russell Martin, Founder and Registered Manager.
Care Unsung Hero Medway Award 2023