Vocational Rehabilitation Awards
Recognising good practice in vocational rehabilitation

Deadline extended – 
closing 5pm Monday 24 October

We are delighted to invite nominations for the 2022 Vocational Rehabilitation Awards and new for 2022 is the VR Champion category!

Thank you for taking the time to enable us to give this much-deserved recognition for all the valuable work that our members do to support others.

As well as recognising excellence, we believe that these awards encourage practitioners to strive to be the best they can, to provide the best services possible for people facing obstacles to participating in work or other meaningful occupation.

Please do get involved nominate others or make a self-nomination… there is no limit on the number of nominations you can make!

 

Award Categories

  • VR Champion – new for 2022!

The VR Champion award is about acknowledging an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to enhancing the profile of VR in the UK. This would involve widening the reach and impact of VR practice through championing and/or promoting its development, provision and/or evaluation.  It is open to individuals practicing in any aspect of VR in the UK; including (but not restricted to) advisors, case managers, rehabilitators, and assessors.

  • VR Practitioner

Open to individuals practicing in any aspect of VR in the UK; including (but not restricted to) advisors, case managers, rehabilitators, and assessors. contemporary, We want to hear about their approach to their area of provision and the outcomes they have achieved. This award is about acknowledging an outstanding individual practitioner.

  • VR Project 

This award is for a project or initiative (as opposed to a person/organisation) from any individual/team/organisation in the UK. Projects may be innovative services/ products/ education/ research that contributes to outstanding VR practice and add to the evidence base.  We want to hear about their aims and objectives, outcomes and impact.

  • VR Team 

Open to teams practicing in any aspect of VR in the UK. The focus is on the team as a whole: what they do, how they do it, why they do it together, and the impact of the team’s approach to practice. It is about teamwork and collaboration to facilitate effective and professional VR.

Deadline extended – 
closing 5pm Monday 24 October

 

Each nominator will need to access 3 of the documents (the guidance document, a category-specific nomination form, and a category-specific judging sheet). The documents are at the end of this article.

We will expect each nomination to come through one per email to enquiries@vrassociation.org.uk as one document per nomination. You can scan any additional appendices into that one document.

Watch the recording of last year’s awards here we got some great feedback on how interesting people found the event to attend.  Bookings for your free place at this year’s event will open shortly.

Timeline (may be subject to change)

  • Award entries close – 5pm Monday 24 October – this is an extended deadline!
  • Judging completed – Monday 7 November
  • Finalists announced – Thursday 10 November
  • Finalists submit their short video for the ceremony (see guidance document) – 5pm Thursday 24 November
  • Online awards ceremony – 11am-1pm Thursday 1 December – all finalists should attend and we welcome other attendees – attendance is free

IMPORTANT guidance for all categories 

  • Nominators can make as many different nominations as they wish.
  • Nominators may include (but are not limited to) practitioners, providers, tutors, purchasers, and employers.
  • Self-nominations are welcome in all categories.
  • Nominators should ideally consult with their nominee when constructing the nomination. This enables the nomination to be as detailed and thorough as possible, so that the nominee is accurately represented, and the nomination can be fairly and suitably judged.
  • At the time of the application, all nominees (or at least one within a team/project award) must be current members of the VRA, but nominators do not have to be members
  • Each nomination should be on its specific form because the forms have questions/requirements specific to the award category.
  • All applications must conform with GDPR. Other than the nominee (and nominator), no individual or organisation should be identifiable within the nomination or the appendices (e.g., client/ patient/ customer/ service user/ colleague etc). Where this is not feasible, the nominator is required to obtain consent from the individual/organisation for their details to be included and is asked to confirm this on the nomination form.
  • Word counts given in the nomination guidance on the forms are indicative. In general, there will be a 20% tolerance in word count guidance and judges will be asked to bear this in mind when evaluating nominations.
  • All submissions can be supported by testimonials (in an appendix), the contents of which are extra to any indicative word count. Testimonials external to the company carry more weight in the evaluation process. However, these appendices should not contain any of the ‘case’ for the nomination (i.e., they should not be used to extend word count facility as they are merely supporting key evidence).
  • Any appendices should be incorporated at the end of the nomination form and if this involves pasting scanned documents, they must be legible and clear.
  • For each nomination there are 3 relevant documents:
    • This guidance
    • The specific category nomination form
    • The judging sheet for the specific category, which shows the criteria

Deadline extended – 
closing 5pm Monday 24 October

Additional information can be found in the guidance document.