25 years of RWW

The story of Rehab Without Walls - 25 years and counting...

Rehab Without Walls’ was founded in 1995 by case management pioneers, Dr Neil Brooks and Ms Cathy Johnson.

Their extensive experience in brain injury rehabilitation led them to set up RWW, to help people achieve a stable, productive, high quality life in the community.

Neil and Cathy instilled a passion for case management in their team and for 25 years, RWW has been at the forefront of the development of practice, standards and competencies.

Over the past ¼ century, RWW has built a stellar reputation and a strong nationwide team of case managers who are carefully selected, trained and supported to provide a service we are proud to put our name to.

Here’s to the next 25!

Whoever...

Over the quarter of a century since RWW began, between our case management and expert witness services, we have helped over 4,000 clients of all ages, from 1 to 97 years old

...wherever...

All over the world - from England, Wales, the Isle of Man, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to France, Portugal, South Africa, India, Canada, USA, Brazil...

...however and whenever!

For as long as we’re needed - from short term intervention to years and even decades! 20% of our case management clients have been with us for over 10 years and a handful have been supported by RWW for more than 20 years!

Helping our clients pursue their interests and achieve their ambitions...

Whenever we ask someone why they got into case management, the answer is always the same – “I was tired of seeing things a client needed that were outside my remit – I wanted to be able to work with the whole person.”

Our case managers work with clients to ensure that they don’t just survive, but thrive – living their lives to the fullest – whatever that means to them – pursuing hobbies, interests, personal ambitions, education and career goals and whatever else inspires and engages them.

See our clients page for a celebration of some of our clients’ recent achievements…

Family

At the heart of everything... we've supported clients to find love, move in with partners and get married, providing support to their partners too, where needed. We've supported them in having and raising children - some going through difficult IVF, fostering and adoption processes. We've helped estranged families reconnect and supported clients wanting to end unhappy or unhealthy relationships and gain independence.

Education & Work

Helping clients feel empowered, valuable, confident and independent... We've worked with schools and tutors, supported academic or vocational qualifications, work experience and paid employment at every level, in any field. This included Dr Brooks accompanying a client to a university appeals committee to persuade them to let her continue her medical degree! (she went on to become a doctor!) We've worked with employers to develop understanding and find adaptations that allow our clients to begin or stay in work, and even helped clients set up their own businesses.

Sport

We've supported clients to take up any number of sports, from football and cycling to martial arts and snowboarding and we've even themed rehab packages around sport to help clients engage. Some of our clients have even competed for their country in swimming, skiing and wheelchair rugby!

Arts, Crafts and Hobbies

Our clients are a creative bunch and we love helping them find ways to explore this and seeing the confidence and joy it gives them as they develop their skills! We've supported clients to take up graffiti art, carpentry, welding, cake decorating, garden design, embroidery, oil painting, graphic design, music, drama, comedy and even presenting a radio show!

Charity

This year in particular, we have seen many of our clients take on some incredible challenges for charity, pushing themselves to their limits to walk, run, ride and more to raise money for important and very personal causes. Over the years we've also supported clients to contribute in other ways, working as volunteer gardeners, cooks, shop assistants, fitness trainers and mentors - often to help people who have been through the same things they have.

Let's go shopping!

Of course, supporting these varied interests, goals and tastes come with an interesting shopping list…

Melanie Bristow, our Director of Operations, is responsible for purchases made on behalf of our clients.

Her favourite part of the day is testing the ‘you might also like’ advertising algorithms to their limit, with the weird and wonderfully varied selection of requests that come in from our case managers.

In no particular order, here are a few that spring to mind…

Be prepared!

Over 25 years our team have learned from experience to expect the unexpected! Tales of unusual experiences are passed around, the best becoming RWW folklore. New case managers are regaled with them and soon have their own to add! Between us, we reckon we’ve developed a pretty formidable (and constantly growing) toolkit of skills, attitudes and actual kit to help us tackle whatever is thrown at us!