Denise King is the Head of Service for our Temporary Supported Housing service at Orwell Housing.

Denise has been in full-time employment for the past 40 years and in that time she has worked in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Denise has a broad breadth of knowledge about how businesses and voluntary sector and charities work.

Denise worked with vulnerable adults for the last 20 years and has been a Commissioner for services.

Denise enjoys what she does but what she enjoys most is working with our customers. Providing great service to vulnerable people is what is really important to her.

A person centered approach is essential in being able to reach out to vulnerable people and help them reach their potential and continue on with their lives. It is really important to help them navigate services so that they are able to move on when they're ready to lead good fulfilled lives. This is our aim and what we really want to achieve.

Denise feels extremely fortunate to have a great team of service managers with her to achieve this. We've got a really good, strong strong team.

In Denise's personal live, she resides in Suffolk and is an open water swimmer. She really enjoys swimming you can often see her in our seas and rivers on our coastline.

Phyl Chigome is the Service Manager for Christchurch house, which returns to Orwell Housing for the second time in 2017.

His mission as a manager is to inspire and nurture human spirit. He endeavours to achieve this by creating an environment at Christchurch house that is conducive for the customers to achieve their goals by allowing them to experiment, fail and learn from their life experiences in a non-judgemental way. He is also keen for his staff to express themselves while performing their roles by allowing them to personalise the support they offer to customers without the constraints of being judged. 

Away from Christchurch house, he is a volunteer one Saturday every month at his local charity shop. He is also an avid cyclist.

Karen Woodward is Service manager for Mulberry House, Warner Place and Hambling House which provides fully supported accommodation for the homeless and emergency temporary accommodation for families and single people in the Sudbury area.

Karen has over 20 years of experience working across the Health & Social Care sector. She holds a BTEC Higher National Diploma in Social Care which gave her a great understanding of the psychological aspects affecting homeless individuals and their families.

Karen has worked for Orwell for several years as a Support Worker in their temporary supported housing projects and has recently progressed to Service Manager where she is enjoying the daily challenges the role provides.

As a Service Manager, Karen assists staff to access full training to enable them to support residents to regain full independent lives at the end of their stay. 

In her spare time, Karen is a great lover of the outdoors, passionate about conservation and regularly enjoys spending time with her 6 dogs exploring the forest.

Katherine is the new service manager at Hinde house. She has worked for Orwell for over 12 years and has gathered a lot of experience as a support worker. Katherine has also been witness to and involved with some dramatic and life-changing events for some residents. She loves helping and supporting women who have been in difficult situations, sometimes with complex needs, to achieve the stability and happiness they deserve and has had the privilege to be part of the next stage in their lives.

The experience she gained as a support worker has accumulated a wealth of experience and knowledge in social housing and all related areas. Katherine has a wide range of training experience achieved in a myriad of subjects from Counselling/ CBT to drug and alcohol misuse, various mental health courses, suicide prevention and many others.

Hinde is a wonderful project that provides supportive housing for 31 vulnerable women. The team at Hinde are dedicated to creating a safe environment for all who live there. There are move on flats to enable residents to experience what it is like to run a flat before they move on into their own accommodation.

Katherine's vision for Hinde is to provide and maintain a safe and nurturing environment for all residents and staff. Allowing everyone to feel empowered.

Sam Webster is the new service manager at Whitworth House.

Sam has over 25 years of experience in social care and has a background in Domestic abuse and Homelessness.

Whitworth House is a female only homeless hostel for young girls aged 16-24 years in Cambridge.

Sam's passion is prevention of violence against women and girls, and supporting a provision to help them build independence & resilience, through informed choices. We work hard to giving our young people positive role models within our staff team and hope to create a nurturing environment.