Three members of the Shared Lives South West staff team celebrated working at the charity for 15 years this week.

Alison Kingdon, Finance Manager, as well as Linda Mogford as well as  Fiona Glanvill who are Shared Lives Coordinators have all watched the organisation grow and evolve.

“When I started there were nine staff . We have more than 30 people working at Shared Lives South West,” said Alison. “As an organisation started from humble beginnings in a small Dawlish office and we were known as SWAPS back then. We only had a long term service back then, we didn’t have short breaks or have specialist services.”

Alison said she has been committed to the organisation and ‘believes in what we do’.

“Over the years we’ve got to know many of the carers and people who use our services and built up friendships.”

Fiona also celebrated the 15 year milestone this week. She started at SLSW as an admin assistant and then became a Shared Lives Assistant. She became a Shared Lives Coordinator five years ago.

“I love the job and seeing the good work our carers do. It’s great to see the people we support doing so well,” she said.

In the future she’d like to see us grow further.

“It is important not to lose sight of the quality of core services. But it would be good to offer more diverse services to a wider variety of people.”

Linda feels like the last 15 years have gone ‘by in a flash’.

“It’s like a totally different organisation to the one I joined, but it’s good we’ve grown and not stood still,” she said. “The cherry on the top of the cake getting rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission recently.”

CQC Report

You can read more about our Care Quality Commission report, click here.