East Staffordshire Family Support, Harvey Girls and Dads 4 Dads were hugely successful at this year’s East Staffordshire Council of Voluntary Services Volunteer Awards. Having been nominated for three awards we successfully took home an award for each category. We won the award of ‘Overall positive impact on young people by a group’ and won the Highly Commended award in two categories; ‘Young Volunteer of the year’ and ‘Volunteer of the year’.
For our Young Volunteer award Lewis Goddard was successful. Lewis started within our service as a young dad in need of support. He developed in the organisation supporting the organisation in holding our 10 year anniversary event. He worked with the team to develop a service user DVD and production of a Dads 4 Dads song and CD. Lewis has supported the organisation on Think 2 work which involves directly visiting families in their home.
For our Volunteer of the year award Ann Talbot was successful. Ann has volunteered within our service since 2009 and in 2013 she began running a one to one cookery session each week for our service users. Within the session Ann teachers cookery skills to young parents with the help of another volunteer. She also helps the parents with budgeting and ideas for low cost meal plans.
Ian North, Development Manager states “this is a great achievement on behalf of the organisation to be successful in gaining three awards and clearly demonstrates the organisation works with service users, volunteers and staff in delivering our excellent frontline services.”