Results 2019

The Ready to Learn and Mental Health in Early Years programme includes a definition of school readiness with 17 expected outcomes that should be met by a school-ready child, as well as resources for families and practitioners. One of the key messages of the programme, launched in February 2019, is that school readiness starts at conception, highlighting the importance of perinatal mental health. Sixty-two children’s centre staff have attended one or two-day courses on perinatal mental health, and 90 delegates attended a one-day Ready to Learn Conference.

Sycamore Adventure now adopts a social enterprise model delivering paid-for services to fund free admission for local children. Opened in July 2010 thanks to central government Play Pathfinder funding, the service suffered when all government funding for play was withdrawn two years later. Sycamore Adventure currently generates more than 70 per cent of its own funding with the rest provided by Dudley Council, and aims to become completely sustainable. Since 2010, more than 20,000 children have attended public sessions. At times, there will be 400 children playing onsite!

The Safeguarding Award

Winner: Cafcass - Positive co-Parenting Programme (CPPP)

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Cafcass developed the Positive co-Parenting Programme to reduce the emotional harm caused to children by complex, drawn-out conflict cases. Their innovative safeguarding practice model was developed by drawing on existing resources and skills within the organisation. During four sessions over a 12-week period parents are encouraged to put themselves in their children’s shoes and recognise the impact that exposure to their conflict has on their child. Parents who took part said they found the programme helped them to shift their positions by gaining a much deeper understanding of their child’s lived experience.

The Tutor Trust is a not-for-profit tuition service that aims to tackle educational inequality by providing academic tutors for students whose families cannot afford them privately. Many students come from challenging backgrounds: 67 per cent of its work in secondary schools, and 37 per cent of its work in primary schools has been with Pupil Premium students. Since The Tutor Trust’s first tuition session took place in 2012, the organisation has expanded to work with more than 300 primary schools, secondary schools, alternative provision centres and local authorities across the north of England.

The Youth Work Award

Winner: Getaway Girls

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Getaway Girls is a charity that empowers girls and young women to support each other, in order to build confidence and resilience, raise aspirations, develop new skills and take positive risks. It takes a strengths-based approach, recognising young women’s abilities, talents and lived experience. Getaway Girls offers a wide range of different youth work approaches- a crèche for children to have a safe, creative place to stay, bus vouchers to help with travel, and meals for young women within the groups encourage participation.

The Creative sector is often a closed shop to young people without networks and financial backing to access opportunities. For the past two years, Sadler’s Wells has partnered with the London Legacy Development Corporation to try to redress the balance through the Shared Training and Employment Programme (STEP). With a vision of a creative industry open to everyone, the programme is improving representation in the sector by giving successful applicants a paid helping hand. The STEP programme has attracted more than 100 applicants aged 18 to 30, with 76 per cent from BAME backgrounds, 14 per cent who identified as having a disability, and 65 per cent from low socio-economic groups.

This multi-disciplinary programme works with young people to prevent them from entering the case system.

Innovate Services, funded through a Department for Education Innovation grant, brings together senior social workers, therapists, family group conference coordinators, youth participation mentors and skilled parenting advisors in one team.

Since July 2018, the programme has supported two cohorts of 40 children and their families, at a cost of £390,000 per cohort.  All the children who took part in the first cohort are now in education or employment and 20 cases have been closed to the local authority.

The Young Carers Award

Winner: Create (Arts) - inspired:arts

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Create’s inspired:arts workshops aim to equip young carers with skills, encourage friendships and self-confidence, and raise aspirations, as well as helping them cope with stress and improve their emotional resilience. In 2018 and 2019, Create delivered 360 inspired:arts workshops to 548 young carers in 18 geographical areas, a total of 8,381 contact hours.

Comics Youth provides comics-based literacy and wellbeing projects for disadvantaged children and young people in Liverpool. The Building Stories project gives a voice to marginalised young people including looked-after children, young people with disabilities and complex mental health issues, and LGBT young people. The project gives them the tools to express themselves and “speak truth to power” by publishing zines and comics about community issues. Building Stories is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund and BBC Children in Need, and costs £300,000 to deliver over a three-year period. The project delivers 13 sessions every week in youth centres, inpatient units and libraries.

YMCA Bristol provides nine single bedrooms for homeless young people, offering support and breathing space while they find longer-term solutions. The running costs of the hostel are met by 18 commercially available rooms let out to holiday makers and backpackers.

The Bristol Wing has so far helped 47 young people into long-term housing, who could otherwise have been homeless.

Bristol city centre, with the support of a range of funders, including a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant of £900,000. Since opening in January 2018, young people aged between 16 and 25 have been able to stay for anything from a few nights to six months.

Gloucestershire young carers have trained more than 270 substance misuse workers, police officers and student social workers, as part of The Mosquito Mission.

This project is funded by the Paul Hamyln Foundation and supports young carers to build their self-confidence so they are able to talk openly to professionals about their experiences. Young carers have learned new skills, achieved personal growth and made progress towards their individual aspirations.

The Children in Care Award

Winner: Lincolnshire County Council - Caring2Learn

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Caring2Learn (C2L) supports the education of looked-after children in Lincolnshire schools by ensuring that best practice is shared and that Lincolnshire schools are “looked-after-ready”.

So far, 117 foster carers and 140 education providers have accessed the programme. Thirty schools have been accredited as Caring Schools, with 22 fostering households and four residential care homes accredited as Learning Homes. More than 80 looked-after children either attend a Caring School or Learning Home.

Sycamore Trust aims to raise awareness of PSHE issues among young people with a learning disability through its Parenting Pathways project. These young people are often overlooked when it comes to teaching PSHE, and as a result may have little understanding of why their body changes, why they have periods, or what sex is.

Parenting Pathways consists of eight weekly sessions which aim to empower young people with the knowledge, skills and understanding to keep themselves safe and to make choices for themselves.

Step Up Step Down enables children in Northern Ireland to stay with their birth families, by supporting parents to gain skills and confidence and helping them to build a community support network. The families face multiple challenges and can be wary of involvement with social services.

The project team and foster carer support workers provide wrap-around support tailored to each family’s needs, including parent mentoring, training, short respite breaks for children, family activities, residentials, and community support to provide lasting solutions for the families.

The Cocoon is a dedicated space where care-experienced young people can hang out with each other and get support from professionals. It has been used by 200 people since it opened and gives young people the chance to gain some of the skills they will need to become independent and successful in their lives. Young people help out at The Cocoon by putting up furniture, designing artwork and leading activities, like the dance group. The Cocoon provides young people with space, time to think and reflect, build relationships and receive a wide array of support services under one roof.

Trafficked young men are often criminalized rather than recognized as victims but they experience a wide range of challenges in their lives.

The Children’s Society’s Rise Project is a pan-London specialist programme that aims to engage with this group. It offers intensive one-to-one support addressing education, social issues, emotional wellbeing and self-care, as well as providing advice on staying safe and meeting practical needs. The project helps to build resilience among young people, helping them to understand their exploitation, as well as their rights and entitlements in the care and immigration systems, so they are better able to advocate for their own best interests.

The Family Justice Award

Winner: Cafcass - Positive co-Parenting Programme

Sponsored by:

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When family court cases are especially complex, judges will appoint a Cafcass Guardian to represent the child.

The Cafcass Positive co-Parenting Programme presents the child’s situation directly to their parents through four sessions over a 12-week period, and asks them to consider the emotional harm the parents’ conflict is causing.

The programme has helped parents to reach a timely agreement, gain new insights, narrow issues, and improve their understanding of their child’s needs. One of the aims of the programme was to tackle the issue of lengthy case durations, and the emotional impact this has on children in complicated and conflicted court.

The Presenting Opportunities with Emotional Resilience (POWER) project provides one-to-one early intervention support to children across Essex. Children involved in the project are known to Essex Police as victims, witnesses or perpetrators, but will not have been convicted of a crime. On top of the one-to-one work, POWER takes a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing parents, teachers and other professionals together to provide ongoing support.

Many of the young people’s emotional wellbeing issues are related to trauma, poor attachment with parents and schools, and issues around identity and belonging in the wider community. POWER has increased young people’s positive engagement in school and at home, preventing some from being permanently excluded from their mainstream schools and supporting others to transition successfully to alternative education

The NSPCC wanted to influence the way practitioners in Glasgow spoke, thought about and treated children and families living in poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation-funded training programme aimed to examine practitioners’ values, attitudes and prejudices to those they worked with.

The £36,000 project trained 172 frontline practitioners across sectors including early years, social work, health visiting, Family Nurse Partnerships and education.  An evaluation of the programme found that those taking part had made many changes in their practice to break down the barriers faced by families living on a low income.

The Skill Mill aims to cut re-offending by offering young ex-offenders six-month paid employment opportunities. All of the 16- to 18-year-olds taking part in the programme are in the top 10 per cent of serious and persistent offenders. The not-for-profit social enterprise has succeeded beyond all expectations. To date, 129 young people have been employed and only nine per cent have reoffended, with only one serious offence. Three-quarters have gone on to further employment. The Skill Mill’s work reduces serious youth violence, by providing those young people most at risk with an alternative identity through a prestigious paid job.

Havering’s far-reaching Early Help Volunteering Service comprises more than 90 volunteers supporting hundreds of families and young people across this East London borough. Volunteers work across a wide range of services including early years provision, young people’s mentoring and independent visiting for young people in care. The service has engaged 33 young people and 29 volunteers since it launched in March 2017, and in 2018 young people’s mentors volunteered for over 300 hours.

Megan Parker tirelessly gives up her time to promote emotional wellbeing and resilience in Kent for other young people.  A young carer who helps look after six younger siblings, some with special educational needs, Megan already has a lot on her plate. However, this has not stopped her becoming a key member of HeadStart Kent, an organisation that helps young people learn to cope better with difficult situations in their lives.

Megan has been heavily involved in designing and delivering training, which is then fed down to the schools and community settings participating in the programme. HeadStart Kent is in 42 secondary schools and 85 primary schools promoting resilience and emotional wellbeing.

Since 2014 Ferrari has been organising Bikestormz, a mass bike ride through Central London. He works closely with the police and local councils to ensure the fun and safety of the young people as they cycle and wheelie on a planned route through the streets of the capital. At the end of the rideout there are skills competitions allowing young people to showcase their talents. This year Bikestormz attracted more than 7,000 children, young people and young adults. Ferrari’s Instagram page has 37,500 followers. Groups of young people regularly gather across London and up and down the country to practice and develop their skills.

Over the last 30 years Getaway Girls has supported 12,500 vulnerable young women from its base in Harehills, Leeds. This impressive reach has been made possible through a wide range of youth work approaches, including group and individual work, outreach, residential and detached. As the only young women’s organisation in Leeds aside from uniformed groups, Getaway Girls strives to have a long-term impact. Getaway Girls empowers young women to support each other, offering training to take the first steps to becoming youth workers. Seven workers, 22 volunteers and three development workers at Getaway Girls were originally supported by the project.