| Service Type | Supported Living — All-Female Service |
| Location | Brighton, East Sussex |
| Client Group | Women with mental health conditions, autism spectrum conditions, and learning disabilities |
| Support Approach | Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) | Trauma-Informed Practice | Person-Centred Care |
| Registered Provision | CQC Registered — Unicare Complex Care Specialist Ltd |
Dedicated low-stimulation sensory space
Secure, private garden for outdoor access
Female-only staff and resident community
Individual Behaviour Support Plans for every resident
All staff trained in trauma-aware practice
Support built around each individual's goals and identity
Sherborne House is a specialist all-female supported living service located in the vibrant and accessible city of Brighton. The service provides compassionate, structured, and highly personalised support to women whose lives are shaped by the intersection of mental health conditions, autism spectrum conditions (ASC), and learning disabilities — a combination that demands not just clinical competence, but genuine relational skill and lived understanding.
At Sherborne House, every aspect of the environment and the support model has been designed around the particular needs of the women we support. We recognise that women with autism, learning disabilities, and complex mental health presentations often have distinct and specific needs — including heightened sensory sensitivities, communication differences, trauma histories, and a need for predictability, consistency, and trust. Our service is built to meet those needs with warmth, expertise, and dignity.
Sherborne House operates under Unicare’s Positive Behaviour Support (PBS) framework — a proactive, evidence-based approach that seeks to understand the function and meaning of behaviour rather than simply responding to its surface presentation. Every resident at Sherborne House has an individually tailored Behaviour Support Plan developed in collaboration with Unicare’s qualified PBS Specialist. Plans are reviewed regularly and are living documents — updated as the person grows, as their needs change, and as new understanding of what works for them is developed.
Trauma-informed practice is woven into every aspect of the Sherborne House model. Our staff team is trained to recognise and respond to the long-term impact of adverse experiences on mental health, behaviour, and the capacity to trust. Support is never coercive or reactive — it is relational, grounded, and forward-looking. The women we support are partners in their own care, not subjects of it.
The Sherborne House staff team is an all-female team, selected for both clinical competence and personal qualities — specifically empathy, patience, cultural awareness, and the ability to build genuine relationships with women whose past experiences of services and of people in authority may have been complex. All staff complete Unicare’s mandatory training programme including PBS Foundation and Intermediate, Mental Health Awareness, Trauma-Informed Practice, MCA and DoLS, Safeguarding, and Autism Spectrum Conditions.
The service is managed by an experienced House Manager and overseen by a Service Manager and Unicare’s Registered Manager, Rashied Shote. Unicare’s PBS Specialist, Chukwuma, provides regular specialist consultation, reflective supervision, and direct support to the team. The management team brings decades of combined experience in specialist mental health, autism, and learning disability services.
Sherborne House has been thoughtfully designed to provide a calm, safe, and sensory-aware living environment. The service includes a dedicated sensory room providing a regulated, low-stimulation space for residents who need to decompress or manage sensory overload — particularly important for women with autism and heightened sensory sensitivities. The house benefits from a secure and well-maintained outdoor garden, providing residents with access to fresh air, natural light, and outdoor space in a safe and private setting.
Communal living spaces are designed to balance sociability with the availability of quiet, private retreat — recognising that many of the women we support find unstructured social interaction difficult and need access to calm, personal space throughout the day. Bedrooms are personalised, and residents are actively supported to make their living space their own.
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