This week, we spoke to families about our plan to transform how we support people who live at Somerset Court, by moving from providing residential support at the service, to supporting most people in their own homes in local communities. 

Somerset Court is currently home to 35 autistic adults in six separate houses. Set in a large site near Brent Knoll in Somerset, it is our oldest service for adults – and probably the first one in the UK, if not the world. It was set up by a group of parents in the 1970s who then very generously donated the site to our charity. 

Somerset Court was ground-breaking at the time. But we’ve now reached the limits of how much we can modernise the support we provide in this setting. So, we’ve started a project which will allow most people to move into their own tenancy, with support, in the community. 

Some people living at Somerset Court have lived there for many years and we wouldn’t consider such a significant change unless we were certain it would mean that people got housing and support that more fully matched their needs.

The people we support and their families will be at the heart of every step of this process, including giving people access to an independent advocate if they want and need one. 

We want every individual we support to live as independently as possible and the ‘supported living’ model has become increasingly the preferred model in the UK. The person supported and their family generally report higher levels of satisfaction and that it provides more choice and quality experiences. 

We have been considering how to modernise our provision for some time, more urgently in recent years because of challenges around quality and safeguarding.

We can’t be absolutely sure how long this change will take, and we want to proceed carefully. We hope the first people will move early in the new year and, if possible, that everyone will have moved by the middle of next year. We will work hard to ensure that everyone who lives at Somerset Court moves on to the housing and support that is right for them, and that this move goes as smoothly as possible. 

Once every one has moved into their own homes, we will close Somerset Court. This will be the end of an era and we will develop a plan to mark its historic role in the development of services and support for autistic people. 

We will update this page with more information as this project develops.