Who:Social Care Wales, for their 2025 Accolades, which highlight and celebrate good practice across the social care, childcare, play and early years sector in Wales.
My role: I was invited to join the panel of 5 (four guests and a chair from Social Care Wales) judging the “working in partnerships category”. We examined 28 nominations! It was the most entries out of the 6 Accolades categories. We each established our list in preference order, then we got together to select a shortlist of 5. We met with those over videocalls to speak to their teams and find out more directly from them, which enabled us to get a good feel for the projects. We narrowed it down to 3: one winner, and 2 highly commended finalists.
My reflections: This kind of process is always very interesting, and provides a snapshot of practice across the sector.
I thought a number of nominations described good practice, which I would actually consider a baseline of service delivery: making sure people’s needs are met at the right time and in the right way. It was nice to read about them but left me thinking, “you’re doing a good job, but surely that’s just doing your job”.
I was very glad to find that a few nominations went beyond that. They stood out for their thinking outside of the usual boundaries, connecting people across silos and involving key stakeholders (including the people they support) in shaping design and/or delivery. There’s some excellent innovative practice out there, people being really creative with what they have, and delivering outstanding services that make a real difference to people’s lives in a practical and kind way. I’m pleased to have been part of the team holding them up as brilliant examples of practice, which I hope will be an inspiration to others and stretch aspirations of what is possible.
Congratulations to all the nominees and to the winners.
The “working in partnership” category was sponsored by Life Sciences Hub Wales.
The winner was Connecting Carmarthenshire, and the highly commended finalists were Wrexham’s Wellbeing Portal, and West Wales’ Delta CONNECT project.
Photo by WeCareWales