One year on: Autism Hampshire and Avenues celebrate successful integration
11th November 2024
It’s been a year since Autism Hampshire joined forces with Avenues Group, a move that set us on a path toward a stronger future.
Today, we are pleased to announce the successful completion of the integration process, marking a new chapter in our commitment to providing high-quality, person-centred support to the autistic community in Hampshire and beyond.
Since November 2023, teams across Autism Hampshire and Avenues have been working hard to bring systems together, align services, and adopt best practice from each charity.
This integration process involved more than 600 actions, driven by 10 separate workstream teams.
Dan Gower-Smith, Group Director of Operations who led the Integration Project Group, and Rachael King, who was the Integration Project Manager, said: “We would like to thank everyone involved for all their hard work and commitment. We’d also like to thank everyone at Autism Hampshire for their patience, trust and support. There have been challenges on the way, but we’ve got through them together.”
A stronger future together
The merger has strengthened Autism Hampshire’s resilience and enhanced our capacity for growth.
By combining strengths, we’ve established consistent processes, shared expertise, and adopted best practice, enabling us to support more individuals and families while expanding access to autism resources and services.
A recent survey highlighted positive feedback from our teams, reflecting our aligned values and commitment to a supportive, inclusive culture.
Lauren Osman, Avenues Group’s Head of Governance, said: “Our recent culture survey at Autism Hampshire was extremely positive. It showed how much we have in common and the actions we take from it will make up part of the ongoing work to improve. We want to keep the conversation with employees going, and will be looking at how we do this effectively across the Group.
“Throughout the changes we have continued to provide safe, high-quality and person-centred services to the people we support, which is our core purpose as a charity.
“At the same time, we’ve been successful in securing new business which offers us greater financial resilience. Once again, thank you to everyone involved for your support and hard work. Together we will be stronger.”
Highlights of the integration include:
- More than 160 updated policies.
- New staff recognition programme.
- All operational staff trained in Active Support.
- Strengthened fundraising function.
- Lower staff vacancy and turnover rates.
To learn more about the support on offer from Autism Hampshire, visit autismhampshire.org.uk/how-we-can-help/.