Saturday 2nd November saw over 450 of the very best in social care attended a glittering awards ceremony at The ICC in Birmingham, for the finals of the Great West Midlands Care Awards, where the category winners were announced.
The Great West Midlands Care Awards are part of the Great British Care Awards, a series of 10 regional awards celebrating excellence across the care sector. The purpose of the awards is to promote best practice within both home care and care homes sectors, and pay tribute to those individuals who have demonstrated outstanding excellence within their field of work.
Sector support for the events includes Care England, The Department of Health, The National Care Forum, The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) and the Alzheimer’s Society, as well as local authorities and other commercial organisations.
There are a range of categories available for nomination, which represent all areas of the care sector; whether it be older people or specialist services and from frontline staff such as care workers and care managers to people who have made an impact in other ways such as training.
Winners of the Great West Midlands Care Awards will go through to the final at Birmingham’s ICC on 20th March 2020.
The winners of the Great West Midlands Care Awards, together with the judge’s comments are detailed below: Care Home Employer
Sanctuary Supported Living
Valuing, rewarding and training staff are strongly embedded in the organisation, ensuring a clear career pathway and impressive staff retention. Person centred, innovative care is at the heart of everything they do.
Home Care Employer
Peter King, Kemble at Home
Peter was passionate about providing an excellent service to people, through utilising a top enabled team led service, that focuses on trust, respect and communication.
Care Home Worker
Dee Davies, The Esland Group
Dee has overcome a lifetime of adversity and challenges, to become a fantastic role model and inspiration to the people she supports and other staff. Channelling her adversity and personal experiences to promote, encourage and develop her service users.
Home Care Worker
Carole Tysom, Knaves Court Housing 21
Carole’s understanding of the ways she communicates with each individual showed great empathy and consideration. She loves her job and is called ‘smiler’ by many of the customers she looks after. There is a lot of laughter in her visit which brings joy to her customers and the whole team.
Care Home Newcomer
Paul Dixon, Mill House Care & Dementia Home
Paul’s dedication to improving not only the lives of those service users in his care, but also the lives of other vulnerable adults in the community was abundantly clear. His own personal experiences have enabled him to effectively impact positively on the lives of those in his care and in the wider community.
Home Care Newcomer
Jodie Cheney
Fairway Homecare
A passionate and dedicated individual who puts the service users at the heart of everything. An asset to the sector!
The Care Home Registered Manager
Trudi Barnett, Highwell House, Herefordshire Care Homes
Trudi is a real ambassador for the Care Home sector. Her drive and passion to teach others at whatever stage of their career they are it is inspiring and her innovative person-centred approach to delivery the highest standard of care is astounding.
The Home Care Registered Manager
Janet Lancaster, Dimensions
Janet is a very inspiring and hard working individual who has worked in the care industry for 42 years and 20 years in her current company. She is passionate about making positive changes to people’s lives, including her staff, and she has a good understanding of her regulatory obligations. She recognises her responsibility in training and developing her staff, who are the future of care.
The Care Home Cook/Chef
Janet Rogers, Highway House Herefordshire Care Homes
In her 30 years in care, Janet has effectively catered for her residents and moved with the times, reflecting the change in tastes and diversity of her residents. Janet was passionate about local produce and preparing fresh meals daily. Her view that no one should leave this planet hungry really resonated and shows how dedicated she is and how seriously she takes her role.
The Dignity in Care Award
Donna Hendy, Herefordshire Care Homes
Donna Demonstrated exceptionally high levels of understanding of dignity and were able to show how this is embedded in every aspect of her role. She gave two incredible examples of how she supported residents in end of life care by allowing them to be able to pass surrounded by loves ones and advocated for their rights and wishes.
The Dementia Carer Award
Keshia McDonald, Anchor
Keshia demonstrates an outstanding understanding of the lived experience of dementia and the need to get to know the individual and their history. She is an inspiring ambassador for anyone considering a career in care. Keshia came with an impressive portfolio of tailored activities that she has guided her team to deliver.
The Care Home Team Award
School Drive, Dimensions
School Drive showed excellent communication skills in all areas and demonstrated dedication and consistency on how they worked together as a team with a real mix of skills which complemented each other.
The Home Care Team Award
Bluebird Care, Shropshire
The organisation demonstrated excellent care of staff from directors to front line staff. They were able to show how reflective practice shaped service and staff development through innovative schemes, such as looking after staff family time and ensuring this was protected.
The Care Home Activity Organiser
Paul Dixon, Mill House Care
Paul has a passion for the well being of his residents and ensuring that they are still included in the community and have the opportunity for new achievements. From getting residents involved working in local businesses to setting up free respite care for locals, nothing is impossible to Paul. If he can, he will so that residents, although in their later years can still lead a fulfilled, happy life. Well done Paul!
The Ancillary Worker Award
Robyn Underwood, Mill House Care and dementia Home
Robyn had a fantastic understanding as to how an ancillary role in a care home can be just as important as other, more prominent roles. She goes above and beyond to include residents in her day to day activities/roles and understand how this impacts positively on residents. Her dedication is highlighted by the fact she was nominated by a relative. Well done Robyn!
The Workforce Development Award
Nicola Stapleton Tully, Precious Homes
Nicola’s passion for her role and the development of her workforce shone through during her interview. In the 16 months since taking up post, she has developed a structural training programme across her services, which has benefited both new and existing staff.
The Care Innovator Award
Paul Dixon, Mill House Care and Dementia Home
Paul’s passion for delivering a truly tailored programme of activities for residents is matched by his endless creativity. Residents and families ‘love his crazy ideas’ but Paul has the drive to turn those ideas into a reality – making life more fun, educating and persuading his bosses to provide free services to some of the most vulnerable in society.
The Care Home Frontline Leader Award
Krystal Standen, Accord Housing
Krystal takes time to listen to her staff and takes staff with her on her journey to provide best quality care. She leads by example and is person centred in her approach to both staff and residents.
The Home Care Frontline Leader Award
Charlotte Caldwell, Bluebird Care
Charlotte is a young and inspiring leader managing three teams across different settings. She showed energy, passion and real insight into what makes an effective leader; what to take from past frontline experience and what new skills to develop. Her example of supporting a client to have good end of life care showed clearly how effective her leadership has been.
The Home Care Coordinator Award
Sabrina Patel, Progress Care
Sabrina had energy and enthusiasm within the role, provided effective support to her team and young people and children.
The Putting People First/Personalisation Award
Debbite Whittle, Advinia Healthcare
Debbie has 37 years of experience and showed a fantastic working practice of putting people first. She showed a strong passion and empathy for the people she supports.
The Palliative Care/End of Life Award
Sarah Followell, Richmond Bede Village
Sarah is a dedicated nurse who is passionate about offering and delivering person centred end of life care. Sarah enjoys mentoring student nurses and sees her role as someone who can help instil confidence and promote nursing home care.
The Good Nurse Award
Kevin Kerr, Voyage Care
Kevin is a truly deserved winner who displayed passion and knowledge. He clearly has a person centred approach and is making a real difference not just to service users but also to students, nurses and families. He is a great ambassador and a credit to his company and the nursing industry.
The Housing with Care Award
Arden Grove, Accord
Arden Grove are outstanding at providing person-centred care by encouraging clients to live as independently as possible within their own self-contained flats. They do an amazing job, despite lack of funding, supporting activities and work with the community. Real team effort their passion really shines through.
The Care Assessor Award
Emma Cross, Midway Care Group
Emma showed a genuine passion towards getting the care planning right, using various housekeeping techniques to make people feel as ease and valued. She had a clear understanding as to how people’s needs can change, reflecting those changes through care planning and information sharing. Some fantastic examples of some success stories!
The Unpaid Carer Award
Jennifer Hyndman, Mill House Care and Dementia Home
In the words of the staff member who nominated Jennifer:
“Jen is a volunteer at Mill House. While we do have several volunteers, Jen is different. She somehow manages to bridge that gap between residents with what might be seen as ‘regular’ nursing ailments and the residents on our dementia floor. Be it singing and dancing or very often just being able to offer something as simple as a hug, Jen sums up what a volunteer is all about. She has kindness, compassion, understanding and an absolute genuine care for others.
She gives personal care, and has a huge passion for activities, mental stimulation and overall wellbeing. Initially starting at a few hours a week, she now often does as many as 25 hours a week.
She is not just a visitor, she brings vision and ideas to the home. A key change she has brought is for residents who are unable to leave their beds. While most homes have a gardening club, she has a person centred one taking this to the residents’ bedrooms. The change she has brought to residents too unwell to leave their rooms is tremendous.
She drives the minibus to take residents out and about, accompanies residents on hospital trips and literally brings joy every day.
If you looked up the word kindness in the dictionary, it would probably say her name.”
The Outstanding Contribution Award
Helen Orford, Regional Managing Director, Dimensions UK
Helen joined Dimensions back in 2011 as an Assistant Operations Director with a passion to strengthen employee engagement and welfare.
Helen has pioneered the introduction of compassionate leadership in her region which has resulted in training on that topic been rolled out across the whole organisation. She also pioneered colleague welcome meetings and celebrations for people passing their probation.
Helen is always looking to identify new ways to recongise and engage with colleagues at all levels. She is excellent at involving families and the people supported in recruitment, management team meetings and staff inductions to name a few. Her colleagues joke that she has a part time job as a FISH philosophy sales person since she is a strong advocate for this model!
Rachael Dodgson, Managing Director of Dimensions UK, said of Helen:
“I am delighted to hear Helen is receiving this award. Helen is held in the highest regard in Dimensions. Her leadership style is driven by her clear values and integrity. She is a senior manager in the organisation who remains person centred and grounded in all she does. She is a regular and visitor to the people we support and is always focused on them and ensuring the support we offer enables them to achieve great things. This award could not have been awarded to a more deserving person.”
Lets celebrate social care and help it get the recognition it deserves