Support Services 

Creative Enterprises

At The Lodge Trust we provide real-life work experiences for adults with learning disabilities and on a 20 acre site of grounds and gardens, greenhouses and workshops, kitchens and café there is a great deal of variety. 

Work might be described as a meaningful and purposeful activity undertaken by people to achieve a necessary task. All too often it is expressed in monetary terms, swopping time for money but it is equally important to express it more widely as swopping time for reward. Satisfaction and appreciation of a job well done is possibly more satisfying and is seen played out by a stay-at-home parent or a volunteer. A huge number of people give of themselves and pour so much into their families and communities. Here at The Lodge the residents undertake work and tasks and in doing so improve their own surrounds and build community. Appreciation and the gratitude of others for a job well done boosts self worth and self esteem like nothing else.

Some of the work at The Lodge Trust is centred around looking after the community we live in, while other work is more creative and productive, for example making products and growing produce to be sold in the Country Park Café and elsewhere to the benefit of the community. Work teams include: woodwork; craft; horticulture; domestic skills; food preparation; making jams and preserves; customer services and hospitality.

The programmes of work on offer have a number of options and provides choice. Individual residents have their own timetable and activities to enjoy, together with the assessed and adequate support needed to take part in whatever they chose to do.

Social and Therapeutic Activities 

As well as the work and creativity that goes on at The Lodge there is always time for the more social and therapeutic activities we all need to achieve a balanced and interesting life. On a day-to-day basis The Lodge is a hive of activity. Regular activities include, craft, woodwork, cooking, making jam and preserves, swimming, horse-riding, sailing, fitness, walking group, bowls, photography and cycling. 

Trips out are always popular and include visits to Melton Mowbray to go shopping or a visit to a coffee shop or ice cream parlour or going out in the evening for a pub meal or fish and chips, ten-pin bowling or it might be a day trip to a working farms, going to the seaside, enjoying Rutland Water or its Aqua-Park, Foxton Locks, Clipsham Yew Tree Avenue, Belton House and grounds, the National Railway Museum at York, Leicester Space Museum or Yorkshire Wildlife Park. We live in such a beautiful part of the country and there is so much to do and see.

Then there are the holidays to Centre Parcs at Woburn, to Devon, Skegness and of course going away with the family.