Essex Cares
Essex Cares is a Local Authority Trading Company (LATC), which was set up by Essex County Council in July 2009. Essex Cares was the first LATC for the provision of adult social services in the country.Essex Cares was developed to give service users real choice and control over the services and how these would be delivered. There are over 800 people who have personal budgets.
Essex Cares consists of 2 service areas; Community Support Services and Home Support Services. Essex Community Support Services provides a diverse range of specialist services helping people to access facilities within their community. These include Day centres for people with a wide range of needs including older people, those with mental health conditions and those with physical or sensory impairment, Resource Centres for adults with a learning disability, Linked Employment service supports adults with learning disabilities into paid employment, support in a host carers home and help to access the community.
Essex Home Support Services deliver a range of products and services to people directly in their homes. These include the new Reablement Service which provides intensive support for people either leaving hospital or in need of assistance in their home environment, the specialist Sensory services team focus on visual and deaf and hard hearing needs for the people of Essex as well as aids, adaptations, personal alarms and telecare delivered and installed in people’s homes.
Their teams deliver a wide range of services to people directly to their homes and well as supporting them to access and keep in touch with their local communities. They work closely with the older people who need support when they leave hospital or in need of help around their homes. Essex Cares is the number one provider of equipment installations and home adaptations for the elderly as well as having a telecare and sensory team.
Their Work Based Training sites provide time limited work experience for disadvantaged people. The range of work based training sites that currently trade includes Catering; Conferencing and Hospitality; Horticulture; Printing; Woodcraft; Recycling and Packaging. All profits are reinvested back into the businesses to improve the facilities and training available to their service users.
Essex Cares currently employs nearly 1,000 people across the county of Essex, with the number growing every year.