The past few weeks of May and June 2021 have been a whirlwind of good news and celebrations for Forward Carers. The support that we provide Carers together with our partners has recently been recognised with awards and accolades. Here’s a timeline of the last few weeks.

Forward Carers Recognised for Carers’ Voice Campaign

On 13^th May, we found out we had been awarded runner-up for the Best Community Campaign in the SMK National Campaigner Awards. We received this recognition for our Carers’ Voice Unsung Heroes Campaign. You can find out more here.

Forward Carers wins Working Families Award

On 17^th May, we were thrilled to have won the Best Innovation Award at the Working Families Best Practice Awards. Forward Carers has been presented with this award because of the development of the UK’s first 3-in-1 Carers Card.

The Carer Friendly Card helps Forward Carers staff, and anyone in a caring role, to overcome three of the greatest challenges they face; lack of understanding about Carers; the financial impact of their caring role; and the real fear of who can support their loved one should they be unexpectantly become unavailable. The Card addresses all three of these challenges, it acts as Carer identity verification, provides access to shopping discounts and includes the carer’s emergency contact details to offer the carer and cared for peace of mind. Read more about this award-winning card here.

Birmingham Post Business Award Winners

This winning streak continued, as on the evening of 15^th June Forward Carers won the Third Sector of the Year Award at the Birmingham Post Business Awards. We won this award in recognition of the extra efforts our service and our partners went to during the pandemic. Find out more here. On announcing us as winners, Marc Reeves Marketplace Publisher at Reach plc said,

“Already providing vital support for Unpaid Carers looking after frail and vulnerable loved ones, this organisation really stepped up to the plate when the pandemic hit. Not only did they ensure that their vital services carried on they buckled down and made over 6,000 extra support phone calls to those who needed it and distributed nearly £400,000 in Emergency Funds and Wellbeing Budgets. This year’s winner of the Third Sector Organisation of the Year is, Forward carers CIC.”

Watch this short clip which summarises why we won this award.

Highly Commended Video

The following day we found out that our video entry in the Social Enterprise Mark CIC ‘Story of 2020’ Competition had been judged as Highly Commended. Our video outlines who we are and how Forward Carers supports unpaid family Carers along with the help of our not-for-profit partners. During the pandemic, we knew that Carers would need us more than ever and we recognised the challenges and the impact Covid-19 has on Carers. Our Story of 2020 describes how our services adapted to continue to support Carers throughout the Covid-19 crisis. Thank you to Pete Millington from Age Concern Birmingham and Hobby Rahman from Oscar Birmingham for taking part in filming.

Watch our Highly Commended Story of 2020.

Thank you to our amazing partners who help us support family carers in Birmingham.

Commenting on all of this success, Simon Fenton, Forward Carers CEO said,

“We’re humbled to be recognised for what we do supporting family carers who care for loved ones in their time of need!

We’d like to dedicate these awards and recognition to the more than 650,000 Carers from across the West Midlands, particularly those who lost loved ones in the past year.

My thanks to all the Forward Carers team and all our voluntary organisation delivery partners, many of whom are the lifeblood of our communities in Birmingham.”

Top 100 Social Enterprise

Forward Carers has been recognised on this year’s Natwest SE100 index higlighting the UK’s most outstanding in social enterprise.

The NatWest SE100 celebrates the success of socially-driven ventures across the UK – by naming the most impressive 100 social enterprises of the year in a top 100 Index. It’s fantastic to see our name on this impressive list of organisations. The full list can be seen on Pioneers Post.