The Exceptional People in Care Awards are a chance to recognise the talents, achievements and skills of the young people in care, kinship care and the adults who work with them. The awards have been running since 2011,
designed each year by young people from the Children in Care Council (CICC) and the Care Leavers Forum in West Sussex.
In 2024, we were delighted to see several asphaleia young people across our services nominated.
Young people can be nominated for Big Hearts, Big Talents, Big Strength, and Big
Thinkers. There are also nominations for Best Supporting Adult, Best Foster Carer, Best Foster Sibling and Volunteering in the Community.
One of our foster children were nominated and so here is his foster carer, telling the story of the award event.
foster child celebrates epic award at butlins
This year my foster child was nominated to receive an EPIC award for his achievements in his learning. It was a really lovely thing, our supervising social worker put him forward for the Big Thinker category.
He got invited to an invent held at Butlins so we went for the day. Myself and my husband were invited as his guests. The theme was a night at the movies, so he went dressed up in his suit and bow tie. They had lots of fun things for the young people, he got a goody bag with treats and he could choose a book. They had games to play. He went up and received his certificate and then we had entry to the theme park for the rest of the day.
Our two birth children joined us in the theme park. We had a nice family day out. The award nomination was to celebrate the progress he had made in his learning - he has worked so hard on his reading. It was significant for our foster child to have the opportunity to have his efforts recognised, and to celebrate his EPIC award nomination with us.