Trustees Vacancy

First and foremost, the Albemarle is a local charity, for local people, run by local people. We have a proud history of supporting mentally & physically disabled people, and those with learning difficulties in Taunton and the surrounding areas, going back to 1982 after the closure of the Sandhill Park Disabilities Hospital.

A dedicated staff team took over our current HQ at the Albemarle Centre as a safe haven in the heart of Taunton. Over the years, we have acquired 16 supported living flats in and around Albemarle Road & Station Road. Our supported care team supports not only our residents but also the wider Taunton community.

Our funded support helps our residents with day-to-day tasks they would struggle with, enabling them to stay in their own homes and avoid full-time residential mental health or supported living care.

We help with tasks such as healthy shopping, managing finances, daily household tasks, attending medical appointments, social interaction, and much more.

In addition to the activities they choose in the wider Taunton community, we hold a monthly social that can be anything from a picnic to quiz afternoons and Christmas lunch. 

The Albemarle Centre has grown and developed into a thriving community & conference centre. We provide space for a wide range of groups, including independent counselling services, Somerset Skills & Learning, Creative Minds, Taunton Longswords, Healthy Little Ones, and Ember Sky, to name a few.

The busy Conference Centre can host 150-200 people a day from organisations including GWR, Somerset Council, the NHS, and Young Somerset.

Our core activity provides 160 hours a week of supported living care, funded by Somerset Council. This can include taking someone to a pottery class or helping them understand and pay bills.

Supported living also requires us to write and maintain care plans that reflect our service users' needs and wishes. We also lead crisis care and vulnerable adult safeguarding for each person we support. 

The charity provides a regulated financial framework for service users who struggle to manage their money.

We are the landlord for most of our service users, so we focus heavily on housing maintenance and tenant rights governance.

The charity's community centre provides substantial income for frontline services. Centre staff spend a good deal of time maintaining close relationships with the groups and organisations that use our facility. As a result, we can offer our patrons a great deal of flexibility, which means we retain permanent user groups very well.

As a conference facility, we have three great rooms which we maintain to a very high standard. The biggest complaint we get is, ‘You are so busy we can’t get booked in.’ 

The Albemarle is expanding our vision by working more closely with young people with Learning Difficulties, and we're starting to offer work placements for young people looking to gain skills and experience in social care and business administration. The Albemarle has just become a T Level Ambassador for the Department of Education.