Social workers from Cheshire West and Chester Council, who won a top prize at the Social Worker of the Year Awards last year, have celebrated their success at an exclusive Parliamentary reception in the House of Commons.

The Children in Need team, which covers Winsford and Northwich, won the award for Team of the Year for Children’s Services at the prestigious national awards ceremony in November.

Gill Hyland and Jennie Arries from the team were invited to the House of Commons event to meet the Shadow Minister for Children and Families, Emma Lewell-Buck MP, and help officially launch the 2017 awards.

They also met with the chief social worker for children and families, Isabelle Trowler, and awards patron Tim Loughton MP.

In a statement, the team said: “It’s been a real honour to be here at this prestigious event and we feel very proud. We don’t get many times to celebrate social work so it’s lovely.”

A stable management team and close relationships with partner agencies helped the team to achieve a ‘good’ service-wide Ofsted rating in early 2016 which included an ‘outstanding’ accolade for leadership.

Over the past two years, staff retention has also been steady, reducing the need for agency social workers resulting in 50% cost savings and invaluable stability in terms of service delivery. The judges said that the nomination showed “real innovation and high quality leadership”.

Speaking at the event, Emma Lewell-Buck said: “It’s been a pleasure to be here to celebrate with all the winners, many of whom have impacted their wider area, other teams and organisations that they work with which is really important because it gets the message out there every single day about the important work that they do. Our profession rarely gets recognised so I hope these awards continue to go from strength to strength.”

The Social Worker of the Year Awards were founded in 2006 by independent practitioner, Beverley Williams MBE, with the aim of improving the understanding and reputation of the profession.

They are organised by a registered charity, Social Work Awards Ltd, and are supported by headline sponsors Sanctuary Social Care; Corporate Partners, the British Association of Social Workers and category supporters Devon County Council, Barnardo’s, The Open University, Calderdale Council, Hampshire County Council, Essex County Council in partnership with Servelec Corelogic, Gloucestershire County Council, UNISON, Kent County Council and the Local Government Association.

Entries for this year’s awards will close on Friday, July 21. There are 17 categories in total across both children’s and adult services. For more information about the Social Worker of the Year Awards, visit www.socialworkawards.com .