Every year in the care industry we attend an awards ceremony, in support to innovations and successes of that year, but mostly to celebrate our staff. This year of course, every event was cancelled, but we were invited to join in with virtual celebrations with the Surrey Care Association (SCA).
We are fortunate that within Birtley House we have a large space around us to utilise. So, rather than just send out a zoom link to our teams to all watch separately, we thought we could pull an in-house celebration together for a limited number of staff. Creating our own Gala, we gave the teams something to dress up for, which they all embraced and thoroughly enjoyed. Social distancing was of course adhered to, and PPE worn, but there were a few sparkly masks which appeared too to jazz up the look.
We laid on a buffet and fizz for everyone to enjoy, and even those who were working the evening and night shifts were invited to dress up and join in where possible. The main reason for all of this was to say thank you, and not just recognise but celebrate the wonderful people that we are blessed to have in our teams.
The SCA awards this year gave a very worthy general recognition to all who contribute to Adult Social Care across Surrey, and we knew that no individual awards would be handed out. So, to take it one step further and make our staff feel extra special, we ordered our own crystal glass award in the shape of a diamond to mark recognition of the Birtley ‘Team of 2020’. Each staff member was also individually awarded a diamond shaped crystal paperweight which was engraved ‘Team of 2020’ as a keep sake, so they may never forget the wonderful value that they have brought to this year, when our house and Residents needed them most.
Why the diamond shape? Diamonds are of course multi-faceted, rare, strong, full of unique character and they shine. We felt that this stone was the perfect symbolism for recognising all of these qualities within our team.
So we say it again, the biggest THANK YOU to all of our Carers, Nurses, House-keepers, Kitchen, Administration, Activities, Maintenance, Mews and Garden teams.
