Support project for families wins national award

St Giles Trust’ Children and Families Enterprise (CAFÉ) project won a prestigious Charity Award at a special ceremony in London on Thursday 11 June. St Giles Trust was also shortlisted in the Education and Training category for its Teacher Training Project – the first time ever that a charity has been shortlisted twice in the same year in these awards.

The annual Charity Awards recognise and celebrate excellence in leadership and management of charities. The CAFÉ project beat another two shortlisted nominations in the Social Care, Welfare and Religion category.

The CAFÉ project, funded by Kent Probation and Kent County Council, aims to reduce re-offending in Kent by working with offenders and disadvantaged people to help them resettle through education, training, employment and housing services. It works intensively with each family, focussing on equipping people with life skills and coping mechanisms to enable self sufficiency.

Also shortlisted was St Giles Trust’s Teacher Training Project, which trains serving prisoners to become qualified adult teachers able to teach their fellow prisoners and improve their own skills in the process.

“I’m thrilled that we have won and been shortlisted in these awards – they are effectively ‘the Oscars’ of the charity sector,” said Rob Owen, Chief Executive of St Giles Trust.

He continued: “I’m extremely grateful to my team for all their immense dedication and commitment which has been key to us winning this award. It is not an easy time for anyone in the charity sector at the moment so this win will increase our profile and hopefully prove we are an organisation who are good to work with and worth investing in.”

The CAFE project received another accolade on 7 July 2009 when Angie Harrison, a volunteer on the project, was highly commended in the Learn Direct Achievement Awards. Angie, who was a finalist in both the Progression and Outstanding Learner categories, volunteers to help clients on the CAFE project improve their skills to move their lives forward. She was formally a trainee in our community based training projects in the Kent region.