Excellence celebrated at the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) Awards
The 2024 HAF Awards were held on 28 November and hosted on the Terrace of the Houses of Parliament by Early Years Minister, Stephen Morgan MP.
James Hempsall, Managing Director of Coram Hempsall’s delivered the following speech before presenting the Childcare Works Choice award:
We love HAF at Childcare Works. And I never miss an opportunity to say so. I said it last year.I have said it this year.And I hope to say it next year.
It is especially brilliant to be here today to shine the spotlight on the people, the projects, and the programmes delivering HAF excellence.
HAF is both ambitious and life changing. We are all privileged to play our part in its continued success.The whole Childcare Works team extends our thanks to everyone here today for whatever you do for HAF (Government, DfE, local authorities, coordinators, providers, partners, stakeholders, and anyone else).
The experiences children and young people enjoy in HAF are helping them, and us, achieve and benefit from better outcomes. We have found Paralympians, signed up football talent, created artists, kick-started careers, and sparked interest in 1000s of children’s thinking that simply wasn’t there before.
We have also seen how the positive impacts achieved by HAF (such as friendships and social capital) can be further enjoyed and exploited. HAF is a significantly important part of preventing division, and they are part of the solution by bringing communities of difference together in ways that break down barriers and foster respect, not hate.
I know from personal experience, when I was a marginalised white working-class boy, how the world was opened up to me through quality, enabling, and equitable services just like HAF in my own school holidays. They helped me see things through a different lens and enabled me to feel like I was achieving in areas that I hadn’t been able to before.
The young leaders who spoke toady reminded me of all the things I learned in my first jobs in the role of activity leader in programmes very similar to HAF.
Standing side-by-side with DfE, local authorities, and providers is what drives our passion and mission at Childcare Works.Our role is often described in terms of offering support and challenge
We are here to provide support by moving information around, critical friendship, and helpful advice and guidance along the way. We also provide challenge so that these ambitions and goals are stretched and as effective and impactful as possible.It is local authorities, HAF coordinators, and many thousands of HAF providers that do the real work.Today, though, we are reminded of our third role – that of shining a light on what works well, and what stands out as exceptional work - from which we can all learn.
In busy lives it is super-important that we take time to pause and reflect and to celebrate HAF – which is why we were dead chuffed DfE has organised the awards again this year.
No-one thinks that delivering on this much-needed initiative is easy.
We are all committed to doing what we can to build a longer-term future for HAF. To do that we must show its worth, demonstrate its impact, and share the evidence needed to secure and maintain the financial and political support it needs.The HAF Awards are an important part of that.
Looking back to last year, the Childcare Works Award was deservedly won by the Sir Hubert Von Herkomer Foundation (more easily known as HVH Arts), who provide HAF in the Kentish Town area of Camden.
In selecting them as winners, we were looking for a provider achieving great outcomes through tangible and transferable approaches, and proving the difference made through data and evidence, examples of collaboration, and achieving added value.
We also needed to know that HAF was truly engaging communities, offering development and capacity building that reduce stigma and social isolation, all through the offer of new opportunities because of attending HAF.
Debbi and colleagues from HVH were thrilled to be the winners last year and extended an invitation for me to visit their summer activities.
What I found, was all of that and more, all discharged through a vibrant programme of arts focused activities like graffiti workshops, community kitchens, fashion photography, and various other things.
And I have kept in touch since, attending the launch of their recent photography exhibition attended by HAF children and young people, their families and a whole host of actors, dancers, artists, and even Hollywood stars.
One of which was Kingsley Ben-Adir (who starred in Peaky Blinders, and Barbie, and as Bob Marley in the film One Love).Ben was himself a boy who was brought up in Kentish Town where HVH Arts work.All the young people there learned a lesson that night – that anything was possible, and is real, because it was happening there in the room, and in their HAF programme.
It is the same flash of excitement you see in children’s eyes when they meet a real-life sportsperson, artist, or HAF worker they feel connects with them and their interests and their potential.
So, to this year’s winner of the Childcare Works Choice award.I am grateful to our team of Childcare Works HAF advisers who paused and reflected and scrutinised the nominees – all of whom were great examples of excellence.In selecting the winners, we were looking for more of the same:
- great outcomes
- tangible and transferable approaches
- data and evidence
- collaboration and added value
- community engagement, development, and capacity building
- reducing stigma and social isolation
- and offering new opportunities
And so, I know that the winner of the Childcare Works Choice Award will be very deserving indeed.
In fact, this HAF programme offers expert tuition for a sport not widely available, and they work alongside sports scientists and athletes – all with the aim of building life-skills, self-esteem, and self-belief – and raising aspirations.
They impressed our advisers with well-trained staff supporting children on a sustained and long-term basis.They offer a variety of inputs including 1:1 with expert guidance to ensure all children attending gain the full experience.
There was great evidence of partnership working that supports the most vulnerable children and young people, and builds social value, with ease of access to gain additional support and signpost to other services.I am delighted to announce the winner of the CW Choice Award is Onboard Skatepark in Sheffield.
