Awards Ceremony 2013 – Working together, we can…..

On 28th October, we held our Annual Awards ceremony, at the Marriot Hotel in Bexleyheath and what a wonderful event it was. The evening was a complete success, well organised, enjoyable, moving and memorable. Such an event is testament to Chrysalis Care’s ethos of ‘working together’, as staff, foster carers, children and young people and local authority social workers came together in celebration. As one of the Director’s, Sarah Boden-de Mel said in her opening speech:

We all, whoever we are, need to feel loved, appreciated and valued for who we are and what we do and one of the strengths that Chrysalis Care is built upon, is working together as a team. Working together we can all continue to achieve the very best we can - whether as a foster carer, a social worker, children’s services, member of Chrysalis Care staff or as a young person…………let’s celebrate this evening and all applaud our journeys and the work we contribute to succeed in these goals being achieved.

The Awards evening was a fantastic opportunity for foster carers old and new to congregate in recognition for achievements for longevity of service and also commendation for achieving targets related to professional practice. Seeing children and young people thriving and achieving was unbelievably rewarding, achievements ranging from sporting success - running for the country, to gaining a coveted college course place, to massive leaps in English levels, to achieving 100% attendance at school, or becoming a school prefect; Wonderful.

Foster carers who are now confident, experienced and highly skilled, achieving awards for 5, 10, 12 and 15 years service, yet are still remembered as they embarked on their ‘skills to foster’ programme (or as it was for some of them, they were ‘choosing to foster’!), all of those years before.

Children and young people, now standing tall and proud in their achievements, some of them now beginning their journey into independence, yet fondly remembered as small uncertain children who were trying to navigate the unknown territory that was their then ‘new home’.

This was our biggest award ceremony to date and we look forward to many more to come.

Joanna Oliver, Strategic Development Executive.