Double Success at National Awards

Community Integrated Care celebrated a double success after being awarded two prestigious care sector accolades at the National Learning Disabilities & Autism Awards, earlier this month.

Hosted by leading social care publication, Care Talk, the awards honour individuals, teams and organisations who have gone above and beyond over the past 12 months, and have provided outstanding care and support to people with learning disabilities and autism.

Crowned winners of the highly coveted ‘Employer Award’, we were delighted to be recognised as ‘an exceptional employer’ in the care sector. Judges commended our charity’s “innovation, passion and drive to enhance the lives of people [we] support” and praised us as “a dynamic organisation, focussed on making a tangible difference to people’s lives”.

Teresa Exelby, Chief People Officer at Community Integrated Care, said, “Our colleagues display unparalleled levels of dedication, going above and beyond every day to ensure that the people we support live exciting and fulfilling lives. Over the past year, we’re proud that we’ve been able to go some way in rewarding our workforce for the outstanding work they do, including making significant investments in pay and wellbeing, and campaigning for further funding to improve our sector.”

She continued, “We’re delighted to see this work being recognised on a national level, marking us as an exceptional employer in the care sector. We hope this demonstrates our commitment to making our Best Lives Possible strategy a reality for not only the people we support, but our colleagues too.”

Our charity was also awarded the ‘Making A Difference Award’ for our ground-breaking partnership with the Rugby League World Cup 2021, and the development of our Inclusive Volunteering Programme.

Praising our partnership’s successes over the past 12 months, judges spotlighted our teams as “passionate and completely devoted to [their] work within one of the best community projects in global sport. This gives more than 300 people life-changing opportunities to fulfil their true potential through aspirational experiences, achieving dreams, securing paid work and whilst also tackling prejudice and discrimination.”

James Brooks, a person we support and Inclusive Volunteer, attended the awards evening and collected the trophy on behalf of our charity. He said, “It was brilliant to join everyone celebrating at the awards on Friday, I felt so proud to collect the Making A Difference Award for our team. I love being an Inclusive Volunteer and taking part in exciting experiences and learning new things – it’s such a great programme to be part of. I’m over the moon that we won!”

John Hughes, Community Integrated Care’s Director of Partnerships and Communities, said, “I’m delighted to see our partnership with the Rugby League World Cup 2021 and our Inclusive Volunteering Programme take home the gold for the Making a Difference Award. Championing inclusion, tackling discrimination, and securing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for people with learning disabilities and autism are at the heart of this programme.

It’s fantastic to see the judges recognise this and for it to be highlighted as a leading project within the sector, at a national event. I’m really proud of everyone that has contributed to the programme so far and would like to extend my gratitude to the Rugby League World Cup 2021 for helping make dreams a reality and supporting us to promote inclusion on a global scale.”

The annual awards, which took place at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham also saw our charity shortlisted for four further honours in the ‘Breaking Down Barriers’, ‘Sporting Chance’, ‘The People’s Award’ and’ Supporting People with Multiple Learning Disabilities’ categories.

Following on from our success at the National Learning Disability & Autism Awards, Community Integrated Care has been shortlisted for three accolades at the highly-respected Charity Times Awards, including ‘Charity of the Year’. You can read more about our shortlisted nominations here.