Staff Awards Light-up Forward’s Winter Season

Forward People Award for Individuals 

Winner: Katy McGrath, Safeguarding Manager within GQA Team 

Nomination write-up:

Since joining the charity last year, among many other things, Katy has implemented a comprehensive and preventative safeguarding strategy, working with others to produce and implement new policies and launching related training that saw 60 of our staff receive accredited L3 safeguarding training in Quarter 3 of 2022.

Katy has gone above and beyond, conducting welfare checks on staff to assist in making decisions on their wellbeing in the support of staff, managers and the safety of others. 

 Hon Mention: Darren Lacey Inclusion Co-ordinator/Drug and Alcohol Practitioner/LGBTQ+ Lead 

Forward Thinking award for Innovation 

Winner: Heidi Hart, Gov Admin 

Nomination write-up

Heidi was instrumental in updating and designing the Governance Info site on the staff intranet, ensuring staff have access to documents, governance guidance, and training, making the pages a much more interactive and useful space for staff to access all sorts of information and develop more understanding about Governance. 

The site now includes pre-recorded workshops that staff can access at any time and covers a broad range of topics This page is also used to alert clinical staff to NHS safety alerts,  and much more.  

Hon Mentions: Karen Lord, Service Manager @ HMP Downview and Rhianne Graham, Regional Manager Surrey & London 

Forward Champion Award - for volunteers & peer supporters 

Winner: Gillian Blogg, ReNew Hull Volunteer

(Gillian was unable to attend the event, award collected on her behalf)

Nomination write-up:

Gillian graduated from support within our Independent Family Service and has continued to share her story, providing hope to others and their family members who have been impacted by a loved one’s addiction. 

A volunteer for around five years, Gillian provides a weekly support group, Recovering Families, where she shares her own lived experience, she also runs peer support groups for people in our family service who leave treatment and has been described by her nominator as a ‘beacon of visible recovery for family members, who is invaluable to us and whose work does not go unnoticed’ 

Hon Mention: William Garnier, Vision Housing Volunteer Mentor 

Dream Team Award for an Inspiring Team 

Winner: The Regional Programmes Team for the Surrey region

Nomination write-up:

This team, made up of Leah Roberts, Daniel George, Daisy Halll, Charlote Bleackley , Anahita Razavi, and Sharon Hill , have gone ‘above and beyond’ in their flexible working to support the Surrey prisons programmes and case management. In particular, the Bridge programme at Highdown where the team liaised with safer custody and violence reduction teams to implement a plan allowing a client to attend the programme despite non-associates being located in the houseblock where the programme was due to take place, going so far as to arrange glasses for the client so he could complete assignments. They also introduced family graduations, allowing family to attend graduations and they facilitated the Bridge, the first programme to be delivered at HMP Coldingley in five years. 

Hon Mention: The Bridges – Hull Team 

Richard Stephenson Award for Forward Values 

Winner: Ilo Edwin, Head of Custodial Services 

Nomination write-up

Edwin has been with Forward for 17 years, starting out as a practitioner and working his way up. He’s been described by colleagues as brave, innovative, adaptive, inspiring and kind. Most recently he has developed  supporting opportunities for trainee counsellor  volunteering roles which will increase the therapeutic capacity of our prison services. 

 Hon Mention: Gee Punia, Head of Employability & Skills

“I first met Richard 22 years ago when he was at Wandsworth prison. He, like many of our clients, had many difficult problems and he had already served a number of sentences, but he was determined to turn his life around. And I had the privilege of watching him do just that.  

When he left (prison) he wanted to help other graduates going through what he had been through. I really believe he was the first of our volunteers who started the meet and greet. He was committed to it, and it’s been one of the important things that we (Forward) do.

He lived a remarkable life, from that change in him. He took two degrees, although he was very dyslexic, and he was a trained therapist, and he also worked, not only for us, but another number of other organisations – but he always kept in in touch with Forward.

In fact, we asked him to set up the Advisory Committee for our service users and he was a wonderful voice for us, as Trustees, to listen to and understand.

Very sadly he was diagnosed with cancer and he survived another two years – the greatest man I have ever seen.

I was so glad to be able to tell him before he (passed), and his two daughters and wife, that there was going to be award for him. As you can imagine he was very touched. It is wonderful for us here to be celebrating a remarkable life.”