Parkinson's UK won the education and training category at the Charity Awards 2015 for a project it piloted in Scotland. Jackie Burke says the experience was so worthwhile that the charity plans to enter again next year.

For more than 40 years Parkinson’s UK have been working to find a cure and improve life for everyone affected by Parkinson's.  To do this well we need to listen to the experiences of people affected by Parkinson’s.  

People living with Parkinson's, and their family members, had reported to Parkinson’s UK that their care professionals didn't have enough condition specific information about Parkinson’s to deliver the correct level of care.  The ‘Understanding Parkinson's for health and social care staff’ programme was developed in 2011 to meet this need by creating an accredited learning programme which could lead to a qualification in Parkinson's care. The programme (fully funded by J Macdonald Menzies Charitable Trust in Scotland) is accredited by the Scottish Qualifications Authority in Scotland, and additionally now by One Awards across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The ‘Understanding Parkinson's for health and social care staff’ programme is an example of the work being undertaken as part of the UK Parkinson’s Excellence Network, whose aim is simple – we want to ensure that all professionals including those across the care sector are supported to give the best care they can to people with Parkinson’s. Condition-specific training is absolutely integral to this.

The process from concept to qualification was the result of many months of hard work and dedication from a wide range of people.  The end result is a high-quality learning programme with that extra ‘stamp of approval’ for staff who care for people with Parkinson’s. We are very proud of the programme and the impact it has had, and will continue to have, on the lives of people with Parkinson’s.  We knew that we had developed an excellent learning programme and we wanted to celebrate our achievements in a wider context and spread the word. The Charity Awards seemed like an ideal place to do this.

We were over the moon to find out we had been shortlisted in the education and training category of the Awards and even more so on the night, when we found out we had won. It was really exciting to experience the buzz when the news was circulated and to feel that we, as a team, had achieved something fantastic. Sharing the success with our facilitators, volunteers, partner organisations and participants was incredible.  Our success is very much a team effort and it was really important to share the award with our partners.  The award has toured Dundee, Inverness, Aberdeen, Cambridge and Hertfordshire with me in the last three months and is a visible reminder of our achievement.

Since June we have achieved accreditation across the rest of the UK via One Awards and undoubtedly the impact of winning a Charity Award has encouraged facilitators to come forward and to get involved in the learning programme.  I am also sure that the stakeholders involved in the development of the UK pilot programme have been influenced in part by the recognition winning the award has brought.

In a broader context winning the award has raised our profile and our credibility amongst potential participants. This is crucial as it allows us the opportunity to reach more people who are in the critically important position of supporting people with Parkinson’s.  

Additionally, the award gave our funders the belief that the programme was recognised and respected within the sector.  We are pleased to say that the education team has been awarded succession funding for 2016 by the J MacDonald Menzies Trust to grow and develop the programme further across the rest of the UK and to develop new work in our online platform.  We also hope that the award will assist in our funding applications in the future as it shows that our projects are valuable and can be recognised externally to a wider audience.

The whole experience, from application onwards, was very rewarding and extremely worthwhile and I am sure that we will be delighted to enter again in 2016 so we can share our achievements across the rest of the UK with you.

No-one in our line of work gets into it for the praise and certainly not for the glamour but winning this award has been an incredible experience for everyone involved.  It has put a spring in our steps and reminded us that when we work together we can achieve great things in pursuit of our ultimate goal; to make life better for each and every one of the 127,000 people in the UK living with Parkinson’s.

Jackie Burke is education adviser at Parkinson's UK

To enter your charity in the 2016 Charity Awards, click here.