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2011 GSK IMPACT Award winners

  • 1 March 2011

The winners, highly commended and runners up for the 2011 GSK IMPACT Awards. You can watch short videos of the winners below.

Step Forward

Step Forward has received the overall 2011 GSK IMPACT winner award for its work to improve the health and wellbeing of young people in Tower Hamlets, London.

Step Forward is based in one of the most deprived parts of England where there are high levels of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.

Every year, the charity helps thousands of young people overcome personal, social and sexual health problems. It provides advice, counselling, personal development and family support and a weekly sexual health clinic - taking referrals from education and health services.

During 2009, Step Forward helped over 2,000 young people from all sections of the community.

Age Concern Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan

Age Concern Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan was a winner in the 2011 GSK IMPACT Awards. The charity reaches out to older people in the region, many of whom live alone, are physically frail and live below the poverty line.

Volunteers are the cornerstone of the organisation, with over 400 providing support to its innovative projects.

Its Placement Advisor's Service, whereby advisors work with older people who need to move from hospital into a care home, helps reduce the distress that older people and their families feel when they can no longer live alone.

A counselling service provides professional support to over 100 older people each year, while the Ageing Well Programme and Good Neighbour Schemes provide activities and services that break down the isolation felt by many.

Alzheimer's and Dementia Support Services

Alzheimer's and Dementia Support Services is a winner in the 2011 GSK IMPACT Awards. The charity is the only charity in North West Kent working to enable people with dementia to stay in their own home for as long as possible, as well as offering vital support to carers.

It has made a vast impact on the quality of life for many older people in the region, bridging a gap in health care provision and reducing demand on local health and social services.

Innovative services include an early intervention project, which will work with 30 GP practices across Kent. The project is expected to reach 15,000 over five years in the Dartford, Gravesend and Swanley area.

The charity also runs a service developed to encourage older black and minority ethnic people with memory problems to come forward for support, and a confidential 24 hour dementia help-line providing information and emotional support.

Back Up

Back Up is one of the winners in the 2011 GSK IMPACT Awards. The charity helps transform the lives of those who have been devastated by a spinal cord injury. Its peer-led rehabilitation programmes build confidence and independence by challenging and encouraging people to create a positive future after injury.

Its peer-led rehabilitation programmes build confidence and independence by challenging and encouraging people to create a positive future after injury. When Back Up recognised that many people leaving spinal centres were suffering from depression and loss of self confidence, it set up a peer mentoring programme to provide practical and emotional support.

Back Up's outreach and support team regularly visits each of the eleven specialist spinal centres across the UK to meet patients and their families. The team proactively keeps in touch by telephone as people go through the discharge process. It uses its experience of life with spinal cord injury to give support and show how an active and healthy lifestyle can be achieved. Back Up's work is supported by 300 volunteers.

Body & Soul

Body & Soul is one of the winners in the 2011 GSK IMPACT Awards. The national charity supports children, young people and families living with or affected by HIV.

Body & Soul provides support to children, young people, and families living with HIV. It started with a £1000 grant and a dedicated team of volunteers who recognised the unmet needs of families living with HIV.

In its HIV support centre, it counteracts the devastation of an HIV+ diagnosis by reducing isolation and stress, improving health and well being and providing the tools that promote active living for members.

Every week Body & Soul supports 250 children, young people and adults by promoting physical and mental health and providing psycho-social and educational support. 

Brook Wirral

Brook Wirral was a winner in the 2011 GSK IMPACT Awards. The charity provides free and confidential sexual health services and advice for some of the most disadvantaged young people living in the Wirral.

Successful projects include a partnership with the Youth Service Agency to deliver sexual health information events to 90 per cent of Wirral's schools; working with young people with disabilities and those who are in foster care, and providing support to young men to help them prepare for fatherhood.

The charity is the biggest provider of chlamydia testing for NHS Wirral.

Each year, its impact continues to grow. Last year, Brook Wirral's services were accessed over 29,000 times. Almost 700 young people used its counselling service, 4,000 confidential calls were taken on its helpline and 10,000 people attended the centre clinic for sexual health advice.

Bryncynon Strategy

Bryncynon Strategy was a winner in the 2011 GSK IMPACT Awards. The charity works in partnership with the community in the Cynon Valley to give its people a better, brighter and healthier future.

Bryncynon Strategy has continuously strived to develop innovative ways to improve public health in a community blighted by the decline of the coal-mining industry.

It reaches 5,000 households a year and 70 per cent of the community access its services, which include exercise classes and smoking cessation counselling.

Other projects include working with health visitors to identify children under five in need of support - preparing them for life at school; improving healthy eating by growing food and supplying it to housebound people via a Food Co-operative; and a case work service that helps tackle homelessness and improve access to healthcare services.

Foyle Haven

Foyle Haven was a winner in the 2011 GSK IMPACT Awards. The charity provides a safe, accessible centre for street drinkers. It helps them get the support they need to minimise the damage from alcohol and get their life back on track.

Programmes help drinkers overcome some of the underlying symptoms of addiction, such depression and low self-esteem. It helps with personal care, providing nutritious meals, and meeting a range of physical and mental health needs.

Foyle Haven has achieved a 50 per cent reduction in visits to A&E by street drinkers in Derry. Through working in partnership with other local agencies, it has also contributed to making Derry almost free of rough sleepers.

Over the last two years, Foyle Haven has worked with 80 individuals on 12,000 occasions and its health workers have facilitated over 700 medical interventions, including registrations with GPs and referrals to treatment centres.

The Niemann-Pick Disease Group (UK)

The Niemann-Pick Disease Group (UK) was a winner in the 2011 GSK IMPACT Awards. The charity supports people directly affected by Niemann-Pick disease, a life-threatening metabolic disease affecting 500 children worldwide.

The Niemann-Pick Disease Group (UK) has taken the lead, both nationally and internationally, in working on this life-limiting disease.

The charity supports families affected by the various forms of the illness through care, information and research. It provides a 24 hour help line, and jointly funds a clinical nurse specialist based at Manchester Royal children's hospital who provides counselling, clinics and advocacy services for children and their parents.

It has recently piloted the use of video cameras and web cams in the homes of patients so parents can send video clips of their children from which health professionals can decide on the appropriate course of action - from reassurance over the Internet to referral to a specialist centre.

Project 6

Project 6 is one of the winners in the 2011 GSK IMPACT Awards. The charity works to reduce the harm caused by alcohol and drugs misuse in Keighley, Yorkshire.

Project 6 reaches out to those who have decided to make a positive change in their lifestyle. 

Its innovative projects include a Maternity and Family Service, working with pregnant drug users alongside the local NHS clinical service, and a specialist midwifery service, to ensure babies can be born addiction free and do not have to be taken into care. Its Integrated Family Recovery Service is unique in helping families blighted by substance misuse stay together and break the cycle of problems between generations. 

It provides an alcohol intervention service based in six GP practices, which has reduced the stigma attached to using specialist alcohol services.

It also runs a successful initiative working with the Asian community, where substance misuse issues remain hidden due to the shame it brings to families. 

Last year, more than 1,500 people benefited from Project 6's services. 

Highly commended

The following organisations were highly commended by the judges and received a £5,000 donation, plus a place on the IMPACT Awards Development Network training course.

Runners up

The following organisations received a £3,000 donation.

GSK IMPACT Award winners and their videos

GSK IMPACT Awards

Read more about the awards, how to apply and previous winners.

Find out more