Community Interest Company — Hillingdon · London · Buckinghamshire
About us.
Connected Minds CIC exists to improve the lives of vulnerable children and young people aged 12 to 25, families and disadvantaged communities — especially those facing poverty, exclusion, exploitation, violence and limited opportunity.
Connected Minds CIC is a Community Interest Company — a registered social enterprise legally required to operate for community benefit rather than private profit. A full asset lock is in place: no profits are distributed to directors, members or shareholders.
Every pound — from placement fees, grants, workshop contracts or corporate partnerships — is reinvested directly into services for vulnerable young people.
Through gaming, fitness, music and creative engagement we reach chronically disengaged young people and those hardest to access — going directly into communities through outreach to build trust and open doors to support.
Early intervention sits at the heart of everything we do, addressing needs before they become crises.
Mentoring through sport, music, gaming & craft
CIC Regulated
Annual CIC report to the CIC Regulator; accounts filed at Companies House.
Asset Locked
All surplus reinvested into services, facilities and community reach — never distributed.
Two-Director Governance
Mutual oversight; minimum two signatories on all financial transactions.
Why we created Connected Minds.
The problem
In March 2024, 67% of children in children's homes were placed outside their local authority — and 49% were placed more than 20 miles from home, away from school, family and community.
The analysis
A place in a children's home costs on average eight times a foster placement, and 84% of the children's residential care market is privately owned.
The gap
Buckinghamshire faces the same shortage of local, regulated provision — forcing commissioners to place young people far from the communities that give them stability.
The answer
Connected Minds CIC exists to close that gap: a local, therapeutic option that keeps young people within the county, close to everything that anchors them.
Source: National Audit Office — Managing Children's Residential Care, September 2025
Who we are.
Industry depth and frontline heart — two directors providing the mutual governance at the heart of the organisation's accountability.
Dwayne Buck
Director — Responsible Individual
- 13 years in the games industry — Sega, Rocksteady Studios / Warner Bros, Microsoft, Sports Interactive and Lego Media — underpinning the use of gaming as a therapeutic and educational tool.
- 10+ years of youth mentoring & behaviour consultancy — across secondary schools, colleges, PRUs, football academies and Young Offenders Institutions, with five years of direct referral relationships with Buckinghamshire children's services.
- 12 years as a qualified personal trainer & nutritionist — embedded as daily therapeutic tools within the care model.
- Frontline experience — supporting young people with ADHD, ASD, trauma, PDA, bereavement, county lines involvement, serious youth violence and chronic educational disengagement.
Natasha Williams
Co-Director — Governance & Compliance
Natasha leads strategic governance, financial controls, compliance, HR oversight and regulatory reporting to Companies House and the CIC Regulator — providing the mutual two-director governance at the heart of the organisation's accountability.