For the latest instalment in Insider's North West Property Leaders interview series, Robyn Hewson sat down with David Thompson, founder and chief executive of Inicio Group, one of the UK's largest providers of accommodation and support to young people. Read the full interview in the November issue of Insider.
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00:00So do you want to tell us a little bit of background about what NSEO does?
00:13Yeah, absolutely. So we are a supportive accommodation provider and a children's residential provider.
00:18So we work within the children's social care sector providing accommodation and support
00:24to children, young people and families across five different regions in England at the moment.
00:30And the name is quite unique, so how did you come up with that?
00:33Yeah, so our name actually has three different meanings. The first one, it's Latin origin,
00:37means to inspire, which we feel really represents the aspirations that we have for young people.
00:44Secondly, it has a Portuguese meaning of to begin and providing new starts, which is the
00:51Spanish version of the name as well, which is to start something new.
00:54Amazing. I mean, you've already helped so many children across the regions that you've mentioned,
00:59but you have kind of plans to take that even further, don't you? So what's next for NSEO?
01:04Yeah, absolutely. You know, this organisation started as a dining room project,
01:10supporting one young person in the community. And over the years, we've supported now around
01:15two and a half thousand children, young people and families, predominantly in the North West.
01:22As I mentioned, we're now across five different regions. And the aspiration is to have a national presence.
01:29You know, we see that there are increased numbers of children, young people entering care across the country.
01:35And we can see that there's real differences in the services that are available,
01:39the options that are accessible based on the region and the location of where those children and families are based.
01:45And what we want to do is work alongside local authorities to assess where sufficiency is needed
01:50and to provide the right homes, local homes for local children.
01:55And so the ambition really is to grow that offering right across the country, all nine regions,
02:03providing new opportunities for staffing. We have a real focus on social value,
02:08a real attitude towards providing local homes for local children.
02:12But that also means providing local jobs to local people. And alongside employment,
02:17we significantly invest in continuous professional development.
02:22So it's also around increasing capacity of workforce, but also capabilities that people have.
02:28Fantastic. And if you want to find out more about NSEO,
02:31then you can read the full interview in the November issue of Insider.