Meet the Unisus Teams

Unisus is a group of companies, providing skills, care and wellbeing to people to empower them to reach their potential.

Unisus is operated as a social enterprise. This means that some of our services are run on a commercial basis and some of our services are funded so that we can meet the needs of our local community. Our aim is that everyone can access the services they need, when they need them regardless of their circumstances.

Our group structure reflects our ambitions. Unisus Group is the company limited by guarantee and has an asset lock so that any assets can be retained within the community if it is dissolved. We can apply for funding under this company for activity which is unable to generate enough resources commercially to sustain itself. We are also able to use profits from our other companies to fund this activity.

Unisus Care Limited is the company where our domiciliary care service operates. Employing over 70 local people and delivering 1600 hours of care every week, we enable around 70 people to remain living independently in their own homes with our support.

One of the aims of Unisus is to be a good employer, and to treat our staff well so that they feel valued and each member of the team carries out their part in the team to ensure the smooth running of the whole company. When everyone shares similar values, has shared goals and works well together this is when the magic happens. Our ethos is to support people to develop their career within Unisus and we do this by providing training and opportunities to try new roles. As we grow as a company there will be more opportunity for this to happen. In return we expect our employees to care about doing a good job and the success of the company. When the company does well our staff can benefit from this, if they show the right attitude and values.

Unisus Wellbeing Limited is our company providing counselling to individuals and businesses. Mental wellness is as important as physical health to our overall sense of happiness and fulfilment. We also provide art sessions as part of a social prescribing model in a GP surgery in Blyth – find out more here

Our wellbeing team are learning new skills and practicing existing ones whilst supporting clients to put their thoughts and feelings in order, enabling them to make decisions that benefit their lives.

Our wellbeing offer supports student counsellors on placements so that they have the opportunity to practice their learning. A strong supportive environment means that the students are able to share concerns, areas for development and improvement and learn in a safe place.

Our counsellors usually have a background in another industry before retraining and becoming a therapist.

Our care and wellbeing training is delivered through Unisus Skills limited working in partnership with the North East Workforce Skills Consortium – find out more here

Unisus Empowers limited is currently dormant as we expand our services.

Kelly Oliver Dougall – Director.

Back in 2014, Kelly decided that she wanted to change her career and set up the business that became Unisus.

Starting off in the spare room with a notepad, pen, laptop and Miss Piggy mug she created the business from scratch. In the beginning, the company offered skills support to help people into work, learning and volunteering.

However, it became clear that the business model did not work because Kelly was successful at helping people to get work- there wasn’t any repeat business and so she decided the model needed to change. Towards the end of 2017 she had an “aha” moment, where struck with inspiration, she decided to put all of her past career experience into one place, offering a range of services for people at different stages of their lives, spanning health and social care and skills and employability.

The three sub-brands of Unisus were eventually decided upon as Skills, Care and Wellbeing. It was a huge feat to change the company from a “one-man band” (as they say in the small business world) to a company employing staff and there have been several ups, downs and sideways moves to get from there to here.

However, in 2018, Unisus was awarded CQC registration, hired our current registered manager in July 2019 and grew the business to its current size. In March 2019, Awards for All funding allowed us to set up the counselling service, and this enabled us to deliver across all three sub-brands of the business. We are currently expanding the counselling service to provide support to more people and to businesses to allow them to support their employees.

Unisus Skills provides training in care and wellbeing, currently through ESF funding through the NEWS partnership and we are in the process of developing more resources to help businesses to provide support to their employees.

Ian Dougall – Director.

Born in North Shields, Ian has lived in North East England all of his life.

His professional background is in engineering and industrial sales, prior to working in the voluntary and community sector. Ian has over 20 years of experience in project and concept design and development, staff leadership and management.

Ian is lucky enough to be semi-retired and so is not around as much as Kelly. However, his role is to support our teams with HR, strategy and development.