One Year On...

A recent story about us on the University of Northampton website was a reminder of how far we have come  (in case you didn't see it :  http://www.northampton.ac.uk/news/a-social-enterprise-initiative-supported-by-the-enterprise-club-is-proving-its-success ) . A little over a year ago, we were facing a rather daunting situation. Our jobs on the county council's Autism Spectrum Team were coming to an end, but we had so much more that we wanted to do. As a student at the university, Ron noticed the support available to newly established social enterprises. This was a lifeline to us, as we had never considered the world of business before - and would have found it too challenging to contemplate without help and assistance. Taking part in the university's Big 2 bid helped us to clarify and formulate our business vision. Although disappointed that we did not win an award at the time, in retrospect - this was an important lesson for us. We knew that we were a dynamic team with brilliant, innovative ideas - but we were unable to clearly convey our vision to the panel of judges. We had to build up our confidence levels, rethink whether our business model was absolutely right and then venture out into the scary world of educational consultancy.

Fortunately, we felt well supported by the university - and were not on our own. Peter Anstee gave us sound business advice and served as an important critical friend in our early days. One of the biggest benefits was having access to the university's Social Enterprise Hatchery, which gave us a home. We had affordable office space with the facilities we needed - internet access and space away from our home kitchen tables! This was invaluable to us, and made our enterprise feel more of a reality. The university's Enterprise Club had very informative workshops for us to attend. Most helpful were those run by Susan Collini
( http://www.websitewings.co.uk/ ) - who helped us establish our social media presence and get to grips with the benefits that google and wordpress have to offer.

So now is a good time to reflect on the past year and see just what has happened. Here are our milestones. It is all down to the support of our customers - they have been so enthusiastic and encouraging! We are able to make a living, and are looking forward to a future in which we continue to help improve the lives of those in our community affected by autism spectrum conditions. A heartfelt "Thank You!" from us.

• 14 June 2012 - registered as a Public Limited Company
• Our website, designed by Nick Steel, was launched at http://www.targetautism.co.uk/
• We began our early forays into social media, creating blogs at wordpress and blogger, a facebook page and a twitter feed
• August 2012 we started to move into our new home - The William Shipley Centre in Brackmills
• We start trading officially on the 1st of September - and we already have secured bookings for training: The Bridge School in Ipswich and Kestrel House School in London.
• 12 September 2012 We speak at FACT Northampton and raise awareness of our service amongst parents
• Schools in Northamptonshire start booking our consultation support. Our 'credits' package is proving very popular, as schools find it easy to use and help them to budget for support that is available all year long.
• October 2012 Working together with other former colleagues who provide services to schools - we form a self-help joint marketing group called Independent NEST and roll out a mailshot and a blog to advertise our services. http://independentnest.wordpress.com/
• October 2012 The search for good training venues starts as we roll out our first non-school commissioned courses. 
• We establish a diagnostic service in conjunction with Educational Psychologist Philip Whitaker. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_64yIojKH57aXd1dWpOQ2UzdkU/edit
• By November 2012, we are astounded to be finding ourselves working nearly every day.  New avenues and directions start to open up - such as providing Autism Auditing reports for schools to assist in their provision  for pupils with autism.
• December 2012 saw the rolling out of an exciting project - as May Gurney became involved with the special needs transport in Northamptonshire, they wished to train up drivers and bus escorts to an equal standard throughout the organisation. By March we had trained over 200 staff in a wide range of special needs issues with our bespoke training package. Plans are afoot to further develop this package and potentially roll out this much-needed training nationally.
• March 2013 Our beautiful new logo, designed by Christina Economidou, comes into regular use.
• Spring 2013 Work continues to expand as we begin offering training to adult care homes, and assist schools with the transition of older students to post-educational placements.
• 19 May 2013 Our facebook site gains 100 likes 
• 23 May 2013 Ron Fortuna delivers training for the University of Northampton for the first time under the auspices of Target Autism.
• 17 June 2013 Ron Fortuna and Angela Capper delivered workshops for the University of Northampton's Autism Study Day.
• 26 June 2013 Our blogger site has achieved 1000 views.

We are now looking forward to the future - and will be moving to new premises at Northgate School's new building The Beehive in Northampton. There will be a conference venue on site which is run by the students. We feel that this fits in perfectly with our company's ethos, working together with the community that we are serving.