Surrey-based care provider celebrates 30 years of impact

Achieve together was formed through the merger of the Regard Group and CMG and has grown into a sector leading provider of complex, specialist support for people with learning disabilities, autism, profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD), mental health needs, and those who are D/deaf or have hearing loss.

The organisation supports almost 3,000 adults across England and Wales and employs over 7,000 team members, 250 of which work from the central community hub.

Over the past year alone, Achieve together has delivered substantial improvements across its services, including achieving 92 per cent compliant ratings in Wales, contributing to a 95 per cent compliance rate across all homes; eliminating all inadequate homes and reducing requirement improvement ratings from 48 to 33; investing £1 million into increased pay for home managers; introducing a minimum hourly rate of £12.30 for support workers, above the national living wage, and being recognised by the Financial Times as on the UK’s top 500 employers.

In its anniversary year, Achieve together will strengthen its commitment to providing consistently ‘Good’ homes for all, driven by home managers and supported by continued investment in teams.

Safety will remain a top priority, with a strong focus on specialist care, ongoing improvement, and responsible expansion to ensure more people can live meaningful, independent lives.

People supported by Achieve together will also have an increasingly influential role in shaping the organisation’s future.

Unity, Achieve together’s advocacy group made up of people with lived experience, will be represented across recruitment, learning and development, quality, safeguarding and more.

Chief executive, Zak Houlahan, said: “As Achieve together steps into its 30th anniversary this year, I feel an overwhelming sense of pride that from a small collection of services, the organisation has grown into one of the UK’s leading providers of adult social care, rooted in purpose and driven by people.

“I came on board as chief executive officer a little under two years ago, determined to stabilise the organisation, enabling us to focus on further growth over the coming year, and putting us on solid ground to continue to do what we do best – keep our homes as our heart and the people we support as our primary focus.

“We are making this anniversary year one that honours our past and accelerates our future.

“The message is simple: Good homes are the platform for growth. When homes are great, people flourish. And when people flourish, Achieve together flourishes.”