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The Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) approach supports children and young people to grow up feeling loved, safe and respected and to realise their full potential. At home, in school or the wider community, every child and young person should be safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible, and included.

This award is open to: Teams and organisations

We are looking for teams and organisations that can demonstrate they:

• Excel in using the GIRFEC approach to support children and families in need in imaginative and child centred ways.
• Apply trauma informed relationship based practice in action across the service or team and can evidence clear benefits for the child and family from this approach.
• Listen and act on what they hear from children and families.
• Work effectively across disciplines, sectors, and services for the benefit of children and families.

The Health and Social Care Standards seek to support better outcomes for people using health, social work and social care support services. The standards set out the expectation that people should be treated with dignity and respect and that services should be flexible and innovative in how they support people.

This award is open to: Teams and organisations

We are looking for teams and organisations that can demonstrate they:

• Provide excellent, high-quality services for those they support.
• Support people to be independent through flexible, responsive support approaches.
• Promote people’s rights and choices and encourage them to be part of their community.
• Work effectively in collaboration with other services, sectors, and disciplines for the benefit of the people they support.

People experiencing mental health problems should get the right support, in the right place at the right time, whenever they ask for help. The Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy (2023) sets out what an effective system to support people’s mental health and wellbeing looks like. The strategy recognises the critical contribution of high-quality supports and services to people’s recovery and wellbeing.

This award is open to: Teams and organisations

We are looking for teams and organisations that can demonstrate they:

• Provide high quality, timely and effective support to promote and support people’s mental health and wellbeing.
• Improve the quality of life for people with mental health conditions.
• Work creatively and effectively with people experiencing mental health problems to help them to live their best lives possible and fulfil their potential.
• Ensure that people with lived experience shape the services and supports they provide.

To make Scotland equal and inclusive disabled people must have equality and be able to fully realise their human rights. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) sets out what disabled people should expect from the system to uphold their rights.

This award is open to: Teams and organisations

We are looking for teams and organisations that can demonstrate they:

• Focus on supporting disabled people to get the right support to live their best lives possible.
• Have human rights/children’s rights embedded in their practice/ the way they support people.
• Ensure that disabled people shape the services and supports they provide.
• Focus on removing the barriers disabled people face in their lives. This might include physical access, access to work/education or other barriers.

The Vision for Justice in Scotland (2022) is for a “just, safe, and resilient Scotland.” To deliver that vision we need justice processes and supports that are fair, proportionate, and effective. We also need interventions that reduce crime and unintentional harm in our communities; tackling societal and structural issues such as poverty, addictions and adverse childhood experiences.

This award is open to: Teams and organisations

We are looking for teams and organisations that can demonstrate they:

• Work together to address the underlying causes of crime and support everyone to live full and healthy lives.
• Promote a society in which people feel, and are, safer in their communities.
• Have effective, person-centred, and trauma-informed approaches to justice in which everyone can have trust, including as victims, those accused of crimes and as individuals in civil disputes.
• Support rehabilitation and work to reduce reoffending and repeat victimisation.

Residential care can provide a safe place for some adults and children who require high levels of support to live their lives. This type of support requires particular skills and commitment to make sure that people’s rights, independence and dignity are upheld and supported. This award celebrates the teams and organisations who provide high quality support in residential care.

This award is open to: Teams and organisations

We are looking for teams and organisations that can demonstrate they:

• Embrace people’s rights and choice in the support they provide, balancing the challenges of competing rights in a group setting.
• Understand and demonstrate relationship based and trauma informed practice, recovery, and development in services and in individual practise.
• Work in collaboration with the community and other services and sectors to ensure the people they support live their best lives possible.
• Are flexible and innovative in their approach to residential care and support.

Do you know a great social work student or newly qualified social worker (NQSW)? This award celebrates the achievements and potential of new entrants to the profession.

This award is open to individuals

• Social Work Students undertaking practice placements (or who have completed practice placement(s) in the last year.
• Social workers within their first two years of practice.

We are looking for people who can demonstrate they:

• Make a real difference to those they work with.
• Bring enthusiasm and commitment to their practice in social work.
• Understand and apply their social work studies effectively and creatively to their practice.
• Are proud of being a social worker and are ambassadors for the profession and the work they do.

Do you know of a great worker in care and support who is new to their role? This award celebrates the achievements and potential of someone new to working in social care support.

This award is open to: Social care workers who are new to the sector (within 2 years of entering the sector).

We are looking for people who can demonstrate they:

• Make a real difference to those they work with.
• Understand and apply their learning effectively and creatively to their work.
• Bring enthusiasm and commitment to their practice in social care support.
• Are keen to learn, to develop themselves and to continue to work in the sector.
• Are proud of the work they do and are ambassadors for their area of work.

Do you know someone working in social care and support who has demonstrated excellent practice to provide the best support possible to the people they work with?

This award is open to: Individual SSSC registered workers in social care and support.

We are looking for people who can demonstrate:

• Social care and support practice that is led and shaped by the people they support.
• Upholding people’s human rights in the support they provide.
• Going above and beyond in their role to support people.

Relationship-based practice is at the heart of what social workers do. Social work has always had a strong human rights and ethical basis that emphasises the importance of building a positive, professional relationship with those accessing support as well as with multidisciplinary colleagues. Social workers skilfully balance any tensions between the rights and responsibilities of the people who use services and the legitimate requirements of the wider public.

This award is open to: Individual registered social workers.

We are looking for individuals who can demonstrate:

• Provide exceptional service which has improved outcomes of the individuals they work with.
• Promote the importance of social work within the wider public service.
• Use their skills in relationship-based practice to work with those accessing support and colleagues in multidisciplinary settings to play to each other’s strengths to achieve best possible outcomes.
• Effectively balance the tension between meeting the needs of the people who they work with and the legitimate requirements of the wider public.

This Award recognises those who have demonstrated a deep commitment to social services and excelled in a career supporting the most vulnerable in our society. Open to any individual who is registered with the Scottish Social Services Council (so anyone working in social work or social care). We encourage organisations and individuals to nominate their long-serving colleagues for this lifetime achievement award.

This award is open to: Individuals registered with the Scottish Social Services Council.

We are looking for people who can demonstrate

• They made a major contribution to an organisation or community and have devoted their time and energy to achieving sustained positive change, over the span of their working life.