Marking 45 years of Wensley Street

 After an incredible 45-years, Community Integrated Care’s Wensley Street service closed its doors for the final time last week.

Located in Sheffield, and having been part of our charity since 2015, Wensley Street supported 18 people with learning disabilities, mental health conditions and physical disabilities to live their best lives possible.

After being in operation for over four decades, in February 2022 our partners at Sheffield City Council and South Yorkshire Housing made the exceptionally difficult decision to close the service, with the aim of finding newer, more modern, and flexible housing for the people we support.

Since earlier this year, Community Integrated Care’s operations team in the North East have been working closely with our partners at Sheffield City Council and South Yorkshire Housing to ensure a person-centred approach to finding new homes in the local area for the people we support.

Thanks to our dedicated team, all people supported have now successfully completed a smooth transition to their new homes, with many of the group staying with friends and previous housemates to now begin their new journeys together. The Wensley Street team have now also been successfully deployed in new roles across the region.

Marc Brodie, Managing Director for the North East at Community Integrated Care said, “Wensley Street’s incredible 45-year history is a testament to each and every colleague that has made this service a success – I’m exceptionally proud of everything the service has achieved and the many lives it has changed. I’m grateful that all of our fantastic Wensley Street colleagues will be staying with our charity, joining existing services across South Yorkshire, and wish them luck in their new roles.”

He continued, “As we look towards the future, I’m confident that this will be a really positive move for everyone involved. I’d like to say a huge personal thank you to our dedicated regional colleagues, and our partners at Sheffield City Council and West Yorkshire Housing, who have ensured that every decision has had the happiness, wellbeing, and best interests of the people we support at the heart.”

Mandy Mason, Service Leader at Wensley Street said, “Within my time at Wensley Street, there’s been hundreds of highlights, such as recent praise from a workman, who had emailed me to say how dedicated our colleagues were – one telling him this was her ‘dream job’. To last year’s fantastic success at the Great British Care Awards where we picked up the top accolade, the ‘Care Team Award’.”

She continued, “But none of these successes are anything new – Wensley Street has been full of them since day one, thanks to the incredible people that work and live here. It’s been an honour to lead this special team and service, and I’ll be forever proud of everything we’ve achieved together.”