Brighter Futures Award shines a light on Social Workers that go the extra mile!

The Brighter Futures youth group – an inspirational group of young asylum seekers and refugees that work together to improve policy and services for their peers supported by Praxis Community Projects – have launched the Brighter Futures Award, an award for practitioners who show excellence in supporting young refugees and asylum seekers achieve a Brighter Future.

Brighter Futures have long recognised the important role social workers and key workers have in supporting young people seeking safety. A good social worker or key worker can make all the difference between a young person feeling safe, listened to and optimistic about the future or feeling isolated, threatened and stuck. Members of the group know that a good social worker or key worker that goes the extra mile can open the door to their future.

It is for the workers that go the extra mile for young refugees and asylum seekers that this award was created for. Members of Brighter Futures understand the challenges social workers and key workers face. However despite these challenges some workers continue to go above and beyond in supporting those in their care. Young people in Brighter Futures wanted to find a way to say thank you to those that don’t stop fighting on their behalf or find the time to pick up a phone to ask how things are going no matter how busy they are and hope that by shining a light on what makes them so special, their peers might strive to do the same.

Each step of this Award has been driven forward by young people - social workers and key workers were nominated by young people, shortlisted by young people, and will be presented by young refugees and asylum seekers at the Awards ceremony taking place this coming Wednesday at the Bishopsgate Institute, in the heart of the city.

Members of the group said: ‘We hope that this award will go on to be recognised by all practitioners as a significant achievement which they will strive to achieve year on year, raising the standards of social work practice.

The Brighter Futures Award is important because it highlights the issues faced by young refugees and people seeking asylum and gives a positive response to the work people do to help us. The Brighter Futures Award is for ANYONE who works with young people like ourselves – you can be a key worker, social worker or any professional who shows excellence in supporting us to achieve a Brighter Future through your work.

We think the Brighter Futures Award will make a difference as it encourages professionals to improve their practise by rewarding great effort and compassion. Some young people we know have been saved by individual’s good practice while some have been victims to bad practice. We want to promote excellence as we only ever hear about negative practice - we want to inspire people to improve and learn from inspirational role models, such as the winners of the award.’