About Us
25 years in the making
Acorn Social Enterprise CIC was born from an idea Sue Aston had 25 years ago whilst living in London and seeing the continual increase in homelessness. Sue wanted to make a difference and hoped a National Lottery win was on the cards but sadly this was not the case. Putting her dream to one side, Sue took job after job, until in 2016 she realised if she didn't make her dream come true, she would regret it for the rest of her life.
​
By now, Sue was living in the beautiful city of Brighton and Hove, where sadly, the homeless problem seemed worse and knowing that Brighton and Hove is known for it's acceptance of diversity she thought this was the perfect city in which to start an enterprise which would rely on people's wish to change the status quo. Working along side The Brighton Housing Trust, Acorn has now launched with it's first team of Band 3 Homeless people and beginning to make a difference.
Our Vision and Mission
Our Vision is to inspiring every person in Brighton to discover his/her power to make a difference.
​
Mission Statement - Acorn is a not for profit organisation which unlocks employment opportunities for people who have experienced barriers to employment.
Our Values
​
​
We treat others as we would like to be treated
We seek to understand other perspectives and put shared interests above any individual or team.
We encourage each other
We provide honest and constructive feedback
We don’t criticise or ‘bad mouth’ people behind their back.
We seek out the very best for those around us and will always ‘go the extra mile’ to help
We provide clear goals and boundaries for those we supervise
We don’t accept unreasonable behaviour but we do forgive those who have wronged us and don’t bear grudges
We don’t blame, but we do learn from our mistakes and those of others.
We do and say the right thing
We challenge things we believe to be wrong and are open to challenge from others too
We live out our principles in the way we do business
We proactively communicate openly and honestly with each other.
We value difference and embrace diversity
We accommodate diversity in our communication, our buildings, and our actions
We treat each other as individuals of equal value
We challenge prejudice, and accept appropriate challenge from others.
We have high aspirations and standards, and we learn from our mistakes
We work hard and refuse to accept mediocrity
We present positive role models
We take pride in our work and that of our team
We recruit great staff and help each other to develop
We are always looking for ways to make things better.
We are grateful for what we have in our lives and we are happy to express gratitude and appreciation for each other
We pitch up with a smile on our face and we enjoy our time together
We laugh often and give out a positive energy.
