Carers’ achievements celebrated at Champion Awards

Local carers from Crewe have been celebrated at the annual Belong Champion Awards as the dementia specialist recognises the outstanding achievements of its teams in their everyday work supporting older people to live an active and fulfilling later life.

Colleagues at Belong’s Crewe dementia care village, and their corresponding home care service, Belong at Home, picked-up no fewer than six trophies between them whilst competing at the dazzling ceremony, hosted at Cheshire’s Peckforton Castle, and attended by Belong teams from across the region.  

The village’s Experience Day Team, which supports customers to engage in meaningful activities, were collectively awarded the Community Engagement Award for their work engaging with local community organisations to ensure that the village is a vibrant hub of the community.

One of the independent judging panel, who conducted a series of interviews as part of the rigorous assessment process, Tabitha Moses, said: “What stood out about the Crewe Experience Day Team was how much customers were involved in the planning of activities programme.”

Lead Senior Support Worker Stacey Wright won the Belinda Jones Dementia Champion of the Year Award for demonstrating consistently high-quality, person-centred care and achieving the highest standards of dementia support, particularly in the area of end-of-life care.

Salon Manager, Trulea Greensmith, was awarded the Compassion Award for showing high levels of attentiveness to the wellbeing and needs of people using the services of the village’s on-site beauty salon.

The care village operator’s Property Team, based at the organisation’s central offices in Nantwich, took the Central Services Team of the Year award for their commitment to ensuring that Belong villages are maintained to the highest standards for the comfort and safety of residents and visitors.

Also based at Belong’s Nantwich headquarters, IT support manager Harry Crawford shared the Newcomer of the Year title for improving communication between services, as well as going above and beyond to support both colleagues and residents with their IT needs.

Liz Jones, from the National Care Forum, said: “Harry is an example of all that you would want from your IT support. He’s worked tirelessly to understand both the needs of staff and customers in his first year and support the organisation across a whole range of tech and digital needs.”

Meanwhile, Andrew Shield, business manager of Belong at Home acquired the Leader of Year title for his visionary management style which has resulted in the service being ranked amongst the country’s top 20 for the fifth year running, as judged by reviews website, Homecare.co.uk. Andrew was promoted to his current role last year after starting his career with the service over a decade ago as a community support worker.

Summarising the event, Belong’s chief executive, Martin Rix, added: “We’ve had a fantastic evening celebrating our colleagues’ hard work and success. Congratulations to all of our finalists and winners!”

The news follows a year of successes in 2022, with Belong ranking in the UK’s top 20 mid-size care home groups at the Carehome.co.uk awards. Belong Crewe was also reaccredited ‘Platinum’ status by the Gold Standards Framework, the highest-ranking quality hallmark for end-of-life and palliative care from the national organisation responsible for training and quality standards in the sector.

The Champion Awards was made possible thanks to sponsors:

Search Consultancy, Collective Purchasing, Person Centred Software, GHM Care, Triangle PR, Birchall Food Service, and Howden Insurance Brokers.

Pictured: Carers from Belong Crewe with their awards.