Better | Together

Social value and security for the future through collecive ownership of Amberleigh care

Changes for the Better…

Amberleigh Care Limited is a private organisation founded by practitioners in 2004. Since then it has delivered specialist residential care and education practice focused on Harmful Sexual Behaviour with a strong reputation for quality, value and outcomes. The directors (owners) have worked full time in the service and been very visible to staff and children.

We have always had a commitment to looking after and listening to our staff, to reinvestment of profit for the benefit of the children and staff, for a focus on evidence- based practice, research and practice development, and to ensuring very high value for money for our local authorities. We wanted to create a route to protect these principles moving forwards.

  • In 2025 we are proud to have made our conversion to become an Employee- Owned Trust. This provides our staff and local authority partners with security and confidence that our practice governance and values are safe for the future.
  • Amberleigh Care Limited still exists – it holds all the registrations for our operations, employs all our staff and enters into all the contractual relationships with our local authorities – it maintains the day-to-day delivery of our technical, specialist service. However, there are no individual shareholders or owners of Amberleigh Care Limited – it is 100% owned by Amberleigh Trust Ltd, a legal entity that governs the operation of our service against robust values and principles. This means that we have no payment of dividends to shareholders, no extraction of profits and no corporate or other investors that might influence the decisions we make.
  • Our established commitment to social good, community outreach, charitable work, reinvestment of profits, research and development for the sector, employee well-being and social value are not only protected, but now formally ‘baked in’ to our legal status.

Governance and Oversight

The Trust is overseen by a small board of trustees who meet quarterly to review the performance of the service against its governance principles. The Trust oversees and monitors all aspects of quality and financial management.

The Trust makes all key decisions relating to any changes that impact on staff, ensure staff voice and well-being are prioritised, and that the day-to-day operations remain consistent with the values of the service.

There are three Trustees – an external, Independent Chair, and two employee Trustees. One of these is typically a founding Trustee from the existing leadership team, the other formally represents the entire workforce and (with HR support) oversees all the internal engagement, consultation and feedback with employees.

Meet the board

Paul Dickinson – Independent Trustee

Paul Dickinson

Paul Dickinson is an experienced and qualified HR professional and acts as our independent trustee on the employee ownership board.  Paul sits on the board of several employee-owned businesses and uses his experience and skills to help us reap the benefits of employee ownership.

Kelly Nicholson – Employee Representative Trustee

Kelly NicholsonKelly has worked for Amberleigh since 2013, starting as a therapeutic carer and subsequently becoming qualified at QCF level 3 and then level 5, progressing over several years to become an established Team Leader in one of our residential teams. Kelly then took on a newly created Quality Assurance role, and this work has developed over recent years, resulting in Kelly holding the Management for this department, providing vital support to the operational teams, supporting employee competence and contributing to training and induction.

Dr Kevin Gallagher – Founder Trustee

Dr Kevin GallagherKevin is a qualified social worker with 30 years’ experience in residential care and education, for 20 years he has also been a charity Trustee in the therapeutic practice sector. Kevin held a consultancy role with Amberleigh for several years, before joining as Managing Director in 2015. Kevin is active in supporting the development of practice across the sector, and in assisting local authorities in strengthening their approaches to commissioning.

Together for Society

We have seen many changes in the way childrens social care is organised, commissioned, understood and used; and importantly, funded. There has been a continued increase in the prevalence and impact of Private Equity in social care, and when combined with local authority challenges in managing a fast-changing landscape with increasing demand and complexity, this has contributed to real difficulties in children accessing the support they need, when they need it, and for this to be of a robust quality.

These challenges have become even more pointed after years of economic pressures on the public finances. There are significant numbers of small and medium sized Residential services, the majority of our sector in fact, established by dedicated practitioners committed to children. These services reach a natural point (as we did) of needing to think about long term succession and security. This is especially important for specialist settings with defined practice models and evidence base – how do you protect the integrity and governance of the service into the future?

Employee ownership is a structure that responds to all these conditions and is supported by government to create a more diverse and sustainable employment and business landscape. We believe that this is hugely relevant to a positive evolution in social care.

Here are some of the key reasons we have made the change at Amberleigh:

  • We are a relational service based on people –
    we wanted a legal structure that was consistent with these principles.
  • To build on and strengthen our established involvement of staff and young people in the running of the service – staff rewards are linked to children getting the very best care, experiences, progress and outcomes.
  • To provide security to staff, local authorities and the public that the key values of the service (including value for money) are protected into the future.
  • To create a robust and mature process for forward succession planning, ensuring that the integrity and expertise of the service is maintained.
  • Employee-owned services have stronger performance in retention and development than other types of business structure – we felt this was especially important for continuity for children and the development of our professional workforce.
  • We wanted to lead by example and demonstrate how this funding model can help address and contribute to the sustainability so desperately needed in children’s social care across the UK.

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