Meet the Team
Edwina Johnston
I joined Choice in 2002 as Finance Director having qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Pricewaterhouse in 1985. From 1985 to 2001 I was Finance Director of H Young Holdings Plc., a company quoted on the London Stock Exchange. H Young specialised in the import and distribution of branded products.
In 2002 I had the opportunity to join Choice as Finance Director to support Paul Gold and had to go through a steep learning curve to understand a very different type of business.
I soon learned that I really loved being part of a company delivering a high standard of care working with dedicated colleagues and that I was able to bring my experience of systems acquisitions and organic growth to help the Choice Care Group to grow from looking after 65 service users in 2002 to over 350 currently.
In December 2009 I was given the opportunity to become Chief Executive. I love every minute of it, and we have continued to grow the business ensuring that we deliver an excellent standard of care to the service users we look after via our dedicated staff teams whilst achieving fair value for our purchasers.
Tracy Bridgman
I started working in care in 1993 and over the years have worked in a number of areas including learning disabilities (both children and adults) mental health and children’s psychiatric services.
I joined CHOICE in 1996 as a day service organiser at the newly opened Peppard House which was the company’s 7th home. After 3 years, I moved to a post at Head Office overseeing Day Services across all the homes within the organisation. Later, my role changed to planning and coordinating staff training and having trained as a trainer myself, I also delivered some courses including a brand new NCFE accredited course that I developed alongside a private training provider to fill a (then) gap in training for support workers.
In 2001, I began to work in referrals. At the time, there were as mentioned, just 7 homes within CHOICE. Having since opened new homes and merged with 2 other organisations (Truecare and Orchard end), our profile now consists of 40 homes with new projects still being planned. In 2005, I became Director of Referrals and New Projects and now manage a referral team. Together, we are pleased to say that we have achieved the highest occupancy rate ever. We have also expanded into supported living provision, allowing us to help service users move on to this next stage of independence.
Over time, I have developed new systems to ensure that we are efficient in our referrals process and provide as much information & support possible to service users, families, care managers and staff during the admissions process. I am also responsible for linking in with our marketing team to promote our services. It’s a busy role but one that I really enjoy and I particularly enjoy seeing so many individuals thrive and excel within our homes - we have some amazing characters living with us! I also work with a really great bunch of people who all have a great value base and are in the job for the right reasons! From Head Office through to all the homes, it is clear that the whole team are totally dedicated to our service users.
Tracy Lanes
I began working with people with Learning Disabilities in 1982. I went on to work in mental Health and children services and as a trainer for a local authority.
I worked in one of the Choice homes from 1985-1992 after which I worked in local authority and then on to a large voluntary organisation where as a Senior manager I developed and provided, supported living, family and community support, Day services and Children’s services. During this time I worked with Paradigm and the Department of Health on the development of the REACH standards a tool used to define and evaluate supported living services.
I returned to Choice in November 2002 as Operations Manager and worked with the team to grow the organisation. At that time there were 8 homes within Choice for adults with Learning Disabilities. We now have 40 homes across the group providing a service to people with mental health needs and Learning disabilities. In 2006 I became Director of Operations and with the help of five Area Directors I have been able to integrate all of our homes into Choice Care Group and ensure a consistent and high quality brand of services which are person centred and provide excellent outcomes for people.
All of our services are rated by CQC as either good or excellent and we achieve this through robust management monitoring, a comprehensive program of staff training, highly developed communication systems, staff retention, and the pride and commitment of our staff.
What I really like about working for Choice Care Group is obviously the people we support and my colleagues, but also how creative and responsive the organisation is. We have a culture of making things happen, we don’t allow good ideas to be lost or over looked in favour of established systems. We change the way we do things to ensure the best result and all of us are prepared to do the work necessary to keep the organisation moving forward in terms of quality and efficiency.
Dr Padraig Quinn
My name is Padraig Quinn. I qualified in medicine in Dublin and trained in psychiatry in London. I am a specialist both in child and adolescent psychiatry and learning disability psychiatry and have worked as consultant to Choice Care Group since 2006.
Learning disability is a neuro developmental disorder with a variety of causes:- genetics, infections, birth injury and environmental toxins are among some of these causes, although often the exact cause is not known. Epilepsy is a frequent complication. For families, trying to access the best care and treatment for the learning disabled child can be very difficult; impaired or absent verbal communication skills can prove extremely frustrating for both child and family. All of this frequently leads to challenging or aggressive behaviour and mental illness is common.
I enjoy working with people with learning disability and their carers. The multi-disciplinary team looks at ways to understand the service user’s needs and find better ways to meet them.
Sometimes medicines are needed to keep people well: Anti-epileptic drugs for seizures, tranquilising medicines for agitation or insomnia, anti-depressants for low moods or too much anxiety. With care, the quality of peoples' lives can usually be brought up to the level we would all like to see.
Residential & Supported Living Services for adults aged 16+ with
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