Information if you've nominated a worker for the 2024 Accolades

The Accolades for workers are open to any paid worker, volunteer or apprentice who works in social care or childcare, play and early years in Wales.

They can work in the public, private, voluntary or co-operative sectors, and in any role. They could, for example, work in a care home, a nursery or as a home care worker. They can work with children, adults, families or carers.

We’re looking for workers who don’t just carry out the day-to-day tasks they’re expected to do, but who go above and beyond in their role and who really make a positive difference to people’s lives.

Every worker who’s nominated for an Accolade is expected to meet the standards of behaviour and practice that are described in the Code of Professional Practice for Social Care (the Code).

Our panel of judges will go through and shortlist all the nominations we receive. They’ll then meet in mid-December to decide the finalists.

We’ll let you and the person you’ve nominated know by 12 January 2024 if they’ve been chosen as one of our finalists.

The winner will be announced at the Accolades ceremony on 25 April 2024.

The rules of entry for the 2024 Accolades for workers are:

General

• Entry is free
• The Accolades for workers are open to any paid worker, volunteer or apprentice who works in social care or childcare, play and early years
• All those nominated must work in Wales
• The work you talk about in the nomination form must have taken place since November 2022
• You can’t nominate someone you’re closely related to – for example, you can’t nominate your wife, husband, son or daughter – or someone you’re in a personal relationship with
• We won’t accept nominations for more than two members of staff from the same workplace or organisation in any one category
• The workers nominated must work to the standards of behaviour and practice that are described in the Code of Professional Practice for Social Care
• We won’t accept any nominations we receive after the closing date and time (5pm on Wednesday, 3 November 2023)

Your nomination

• You must answer every question on the nomination form
• You must stick to the word limit – the judges won’t look at any nominations that go over the word limit
• The judges will only look at the information included on the nomination form and won’t look at extra material, such as photos or videos
• You must give us contact details for you and the person you are nominating, so we can get in touch with you
• You must make sure you have permission from the person you’re nominating to nominate them before sending us the form
• We may use the information you give us in the nomination form to promote the Accolades
• We’ll let you know the outcome of your nomination by 12 January 2024
• We can’t return your nomination from.

You should make sure you and the person you’re nominating have read and understood the terms and conditions before you send us your nomination:

Publicity

You and the person you’re nominating must agree that we can use the information in your nomination form to:

• promote and publicise the Accolades
• share notable practice and help others learn in the social care and childcare, play and early years sectors.

We’ll make a short film of all the finalists, which will be shown at the awards ceremony.

Filming is likely to take place between January and February 2024, and all the finalists will need to make sure they’re available for filming. We’ll send the finalists more information about the filming in January 2024.

All the finalists could receive publicity in the media in Wales.

Judging

Our judging panel will choose the winners and finalists. There will only be one winner in each category.

The members of the judging panel mustn’t have any connection to the workers nominated for the Accolades.

The judges’ decision will be final and we won’t enter into correspondence about their decision.

We’ll award a trophy to the winner of each category and a certificate to all the finalists. There’ll be no cash awards or equivalent.

All the finalists will be invited to attend the Accolades awards ceremony on 25 April 2024. If a finalist can’t attend the ceremony, they’ll need to let us know beforehand and tell us who’ll accept the award or certificate on their behalf.

Finalists will be told how many places they have at the awards ceremony. Anyone attending the ceremony will have to pay their own travel and accommodation fees.

If we find out a finalist or their nominator has broken the rules – before or after an Accolade is presented – the judges may disqualify the worker. If this happens, the trophy and/or certificate must be sent back to us right away.

• Closing date: 5pm, 3 November 2023
• Announcing finalists for the workers’ awards: 12 January 2024
• Filming the finalists for the workers’ awards: 29 January to 16 February 2024
• Accolades awards ceremony: 25 April 2024