Children in care get movie star treatment at Council awards bash
Thursday, 26 September 2019
An aspiring social worker that fled his war-torn homeland and a woman described as a ‘role model’ were both named Young Person of the Year at a movie-themed Children in Care Awards.
The annual event celebrates the achievements of around 460 care leavers and children looked after by Central Bedfordshire Council.
Many of the 130 young people and staff in attendance at the authority’s Chicksands headquarters dressed up as their favourite film characters, as part of the movie theme chosen by the Children in Care Council.
This is made up of children and young people who are or have been in the care of Central Bedfordshire Council. Its members work with the local authority’s Corporate Parenting Panel to improve services for looked-after children in the area.
Mollie Walker and Karmand Bababkr, both 18, were the two winners of the Young Person of the Year award. Every child or young person in the Council’s care also received certificates in recognition of their individual achievements.
Karmand fled his ISIS-occupied homeland to come alone to the UK, overcoming the language barrier to achieve the best GCSE grades possible.
Now, with a desire to make a difference to the lives of other young people in care, he aspires to be a social worker. To achieve this, he became one of the first young people in care to secure an apprenticeship within Central Bedfordshire Council.
Fellow Young Person of the Year, Mollie, was nominated for ‘having such a positive outlook on life,’ and being ‘great role model to other young people’.
She is a Central Bedfordshire Council Quality Assurance Assistant and visits semi-independent care providers to offer feedback on their service for young people.
Through her work with the Council’s Youth Support Team, Mollie also gained the qualifications to become an apprentice on the London Luton Airport Direct Air-Rail Transit (DART) infrastructure project.
Councillor Sue Clark, Executive Member for Families, Education and Children, said:
It was such an honour to attend the awards event and meet so many fantastic young people and to see them being recognised and rewarded for their achievements. Congratulations to everyone.
All our young people deserve the best possible start in life. For those in Central Bedfordshire Council’s care, it is our aim to help them lead happy and healthy lives, so that they can develop into independent, confident young adults with a bright future ahead of them.