Social workers strike gold at national awards

Celebrating a golden double: Chloe and Sue

Two Shropshire Council social workers are celebrating after winning prestigious awards at the national Social Worker of the Year Awards.

Congratulations to Chloe Lambert and Sue Bunker who both won Gold awards in the 2024 Social Worker of the Year Awards.

Sue won Gold in the Team Leader of the Year, Adult Services category and Chloe also won Gold in the Adult Social Worker of the Year category.

Sue works in adult social care as a team manager for the Central Community Social Work team. The team provide social work and social care services to adults in Shrewsbury and the surrounding area.

Sue is an extremely experienced team manager and is also a Practice Educator. Her nomination was supported by multiple people who all gave the same feedback; in all senses of the word Sue is a Leader.

Chloe works in the adult social care community north team as a senior social worker in her main role, line managing workers in the team and holds a small complex case load of individuals who she works directly with as their allocated social worker, some of whom she has worked with for over four and a half years.

Chloe is also a Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) Best Interest Assessor for the DoLs team as overtime work and a Practice Educator for student social workers on placement with us.

All those shortlisted were recognised for their extraordinary practice and found out they had won at the awards event last Friday 8 November in London.

The finalists were chosen by panels of independent judges including previous award winners, social workers, industry leaders and people with lived experience of social work.

Councillor Cecilia Motley, portfolio holder for Adult Social Care and Public Health said:

“We are delighted that Sue and Chloe have been recognised for the vital and important work that they do in adult social care.

“They represent the enthusiasm, passion and commitment that we see across the service and are both deserving winners.”

Both Chloe and Sue will be invited to a parliamentary reception in March to meet the sponsors and continue the celebrations.