Toni Nye

Director.

Toni Nye is a Director at Keystage Housing. She has been with Keystage since the very beginning. She has supported the growth of the business through a variety of means, most notably through the creation of a team of highly skilled and experienced people who have the influence and skills to support people in changing their lives through the right accommodation with the right support at the right time.

Toni’s role supports all Keystage’s service operations, from service development, quality and training, through to talent attraction and retention, finance, forging and growing partnerships and maintenance and property management. Her role provides her with a unique view of the entire business, and the opportunity every day to work alongside Keystage’s employees and the service users who live at the sites.

Toni began her pathway towards Keystage when she started working at Brunel University, alongside conferencing and events management Toni also facilitated a series of community theatre workshops for adults with learning disabilities and mental health issues, as well as young offenders. This brought her direct exposure to the variety of experiences each had, and the barriers and adversities faced within their own communities. Toni subsequently took a role as a support worker for a local provider of supported accommodation, working with people in their own flats, who had mental health needs, learning disabilities, and dual diagnosis. The service was then merged with a national provider of regulated support and supported housing. Over the next 6 years, her role as service manager saw her gain regional experience of this important sector in London, Luton, Cornwall and Suffolk. Her focus was on opening new services, embedding best practice, improving services through regulated audits and working with individuals to provide the right support models. 

Toni’s first hand exposure to the challenges and risks facing those with the prospect of homelessness has made her feel a huge sense of injustice. Her career in regulated support, with the safeguards, personalisation, advocacy and social care that entails is in stark contrast to the care that individuals who face a homelessness crisis experience, including the underpinned physical and mental health and social needs. She wants to overturn this and the work she does at Keystage sees her lead teams that build relationships with individuals, recognising their needs and the safeguards required, both under the Care Act 2014 and legislations but also with regards to building positive interventions and access to these through a trauma informed approach.

Toni believes that the pathways they have built within Keystage have been a catalyst for change both for the sector, and for the individuals they support. Along with her colleagues who are passionate about change for people and systemic change for services for homelessness, Toni says: 

“Our vision is to always remain relevant, have the integrity to recognise where we need to develop to ensure we provide high quality services and accommodation to those who need it most. My hopes for Keystage is to always provide an opportunity for people to grow: within themselves, their skills, their lives, and their experience. I want to see Keystage build more quality and safe housing options for those who face such huge barriers to housing, and provide housing that instils dignity, value and hope. Finally, I hope our values continue to live beyond us.”