Finalists for the National Care Awards, 2026
On Friday 6th November, this year’s National Care Awards final took place at the Park Plaza in London. We were delighted to have four fantastic finalists representing Creative Support:
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- Thistley Green, Essex – finalist for Specialist Care Provider of the Year – Homecare or Supported Living. Jake, Ray and James, who are supported at Thistley Green, attended the awards alongside Team Leaders Nana Damoah and Sharon Weller.
- Teesside Care at Home – finalist for Domiciliary Care Provider of the Year. Service Director Jenni Pearson-Butterfield, Registered Service Manager Kelly Porter, Operations Manager Adam Spence, and Senior Support Workers Julie Bradley and Emmanual Danjuma attended from the North East team.
- Eastfield Hall Close, Doncaster – finalist for the Dignity and Respect Award. Our Doncaster attendees included Registered Manager Hannah McIntyre, Acting Team Leader Summer Shillito, Service Director Leanne Patterson, Senior Operations Manager Abigail Gelder and Senior Registered Manager Chloe Mclellan.
- Claire Lumb, PBS and Service Manager – finalist for Training & Development of the Year.
We are so proud of our finalists from across our services, and we’re thrilled to share that Claire Lumb won the Training & Development of the Year Award. An outstanding achievement, congratulations Claire!
Claire said: “It really meant a lot that I was nominated for this award and I was surprised I won. It really is a shared award for the Complex Care Team and the teams we support as we work together to ensure people and have a good quality of life. I was delighted that Jake, Ray, and James, who live in Essex, went on stage with me to receive the award and everyone who attended for their nominations were able to share in Creative Support winning.”
Claire was recognised for her exemplary leadership, enabling positive outcomes for people supported in our complex care services, using learnings from people’s lived experience and feedback to create ongoing training opportunities for staff. She has also worked on a pilot course to embed ‘Skills for Active Support’ training in services across London, Essex and St Helens, leading to notable improvements in the quality of engagement and overall support. Claire developed monthly Community of Practice meetings, increasing participation from services across the country, alongside both individual and group reflective practice supervisions, and supported co-produced training with the people we support.
We are so pleased to see Claire gaining this recognition for her remarkable contributions over the past 20 years of her career in adult social care.
Congratulations once again to all of our finalists and thank you for your incredible work.
