SASW Awards, 2014

On World Social Work Day, 17 March, we are as always, announcing the winners of our Awards. This year we are able to award the Practice Teacher, SW Lecturer, and Social Worker of the Year Award, at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. The first two categories were new this year as the SASW Committee were reviewing the process.

Awards go through phases, and the Oscars for social work are no different. Despite continued attempts to encourage nominations, we did not receive the standard and volume of applications we previously enjoyed for the Student or Residential Worker of the Year, so decided not to award, despite some good applications. We were pleased to have more applications for “Social Worker of the Year” than we have had in many years, which made short listing complex, and judging hard! “Good”, as in, what we should expect in a worker, and “Outstanding” which is consistent evidence of exceptional practice, and what we use to determine a winner, are subjective perceptions. This year Committee invited some external partners to help us identify our outstanding candidates, Alison Petch Director of IRISS, Wendy Harrington from SWS, and Alan Baird Chief SW Advisor, kindly all gave their time to help us decide who should be honoured this time. We look forward to the evening! SASW and other partners are considering how we can best work together on Awards, while maintaining our own unique SASW Awards, but possibly in a wider multi-agency event. We will keep you posted!