Congratulations to the Blaenau Gwent Youth Service who are joint winners in the Youth Work Excellence Awards category - ‘Developing Self and Others in a Youth Work Setting’. The award recognises a team, organisation or individual that has demonstrated excellence in developing youth work skills, knowledge and expertise of themselves and others
Blaenau Gwent Youth Service support the young people of Blaenau Gwent between the ages of 11 – 25. Offering support, information and guidance across a range of open access and targeted programmes.
Key to their high service standards is a workforce development plan and wellbeing strategy. This ensures that all staff are well trained and can deliver a more efficient and effective service to the young people of the borough.
Keith Towler, Chair of the Interim Youth Work Board says:
“This was a tough category to judge with many strong applicants. After much deliberation and debate the judges chose to award joint winners, as they had very different perspectives on demonstrating excellence in this category – one is a youth service, Blaenau Gwent Youth Service and the other an individual, Declan Greenshields from Evolve (Swansea Youth People Services)”.
The Youth Work Excellence Awards recognise and celebrate outstanding contributions from youth workers and those involved in youth projects throughout Wales. Organised by Welsh Government, these prestigious awards are aligned to the strategic priorities of the new Youth Work Strategy for Wales. The Strategy sets out a series of high-level principles and collaborative actions to improve youth work available to young people.
Councillor Joanne Collins, Executive Member for Education added:
“I am so proud of what the Blaenau Gwent Youth Service has achieved, especially as the calibre of candidates in their category was very impressive. It really demonstrates the ongoing commitment and dedication of our Blaenau Gwent Youth Service team during these challenging times”.
There are nine main award categories which reflect the transitional period of the Youth Work Strategy for Wales, demonstrating the rich diversity of youth work throughout Wales. This year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the awards ceremony took place online at 3pm on Friday 9th October.
See this year’s Youth Work Excellence Awards 2020 finalists and winners virtually on YouTube: https://youtu.be/xZ5XEoR7erM