Award winners 2021!

It was the third year of the awards, and the most uplifting finale to our 2021 annual conference. And given the unique circumstances this year, we created two award categories to reflect the challenges of the pandemic: the everyday hero award for an individual, and the pandemic lifeline award for services.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, or on the zoom call, after hearing the stories of the winners and highly commended people – they represent each one of our members who have faced, and continue to face, exceptionally challenging circumstances, responding to the pandemic.

(we will be adding individual stories on each of the winners over the next few days, and you can watch a video of the awards ceremony at the bottom of this page)

We recognise that everyone has been doing incredible work recently, during some of the most difficult times anyone can remember. It is always a privilege, and a very difficult task, to highlight just a few people at our annual awards, this year more than ever.

We were delighted to present awards to these exceptional individuals and teams for their achievements over the past year:

Awarded to a Shared Lives carer who has gone above and beyond to improve outcomes and community connections for those they support.

Winner – Francesco Folino and Reeaz Hosenbocus (Surrey Choices)
Highly commended – Louisa Moss (Hampshire Shared Lives)
Highly commended – Kulvinder and Manjit Chatwal (Greenwich Shared Lives)

The human rights award for free expression is awarded to a person supported by a Shared Lives carer for speaking their mind, growing in confidence and living the life they choose.

Winner – Jade Jones (South East Wales Shared Lives) Read Jade’s story
Highly commended –  Jake Perkin (Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole)
Highly commended –  Abby Gaylard (Shared Lives South West) Read Abby’s story

Awarded to the individuals who have most promoted shared living. The judging panel were looking for people who made a measurable difference, for instance by:

• building stronger community connections
• recruiting more carers
• raising the profile of their scheme or programme
• developing more commissioner support
• engaging social prescribers

Winner, Shared Lives – Stephanie Holcroft (PSS Merseyside)
Winner, Homeshare – Norman and George (Two Generations)
Highly commended, Homeshare – Emma Parrish-Andrew (Homeshare Gloucestershire)

Award to the Shared Lives scheme, or Homeshare programme, that has taken an innovative approach to developing, improving, or expanding its service.

This could include adapting their work to support more people, making significant improvements to their practice, or exploring ways to support new groups of people with Shared Lives or Homeshare.

Winner – PSS Merseyside, for their ground-breaking work making Shared Lives care available to women at risk of, or escaping, domestic violence.
Highly Commended – Hackney Shared Lives, for their digital inclusion project.

This award was originally intended to recognise the small acts of kindness that have helped so many people get through the pandemic. But after reading Ian’s story of how his actions saved the life of his Shared Lives carer Sandra, how could we give this award to anyone else?

Winner – Ian Ruddock, supported by Sandra McKeown, Shared Lives carer (PSS Merseyside)

Awarded to the scheme that showed exceptional resilience during the pandemic, going above and beyond to support their Shared Lives carers and the people who live with them.

Joint winner – Better Together
Joint winner – Surrey Choices
Highly commended – Greenwich Shared Lives

With almost 80 years of service between them, we were delighted to present two retiring Shared Lives carers with Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Winner  – Wilma Fergus (PossAbilities)
Winner  – Cathy McDonagh (Islington Shared Lives)

Jayne Wilson, Director of Development and interim CEO, says:

“This year the judging panel were thrilled to receive so many fantastic nominations from people involved in Shared Lives or Homeshare. Our members do incredible work, often unnoticed in the kind, caring and life-transformative way of sharing their homes and lives together.

These awards celebrate the very best of our members’ work: promoting human rights, developing Shared Lives care to more people with different support needs, sharing their own experiences to people locally, regionally and nationally with authenticity and willingness.

We loved hearing each person’s stories which were truly inspiring. Thank you from all of us at Shared Lives Plus, we hope you are full of pride as much as we are!”