Education and training category winners

The Migration Museum was set up to establish what it refers to as “Britain’s missing museum” – namely one that put Britain’s migration story at centre stage. Its team creates resources and runs workshops at its exhibition space in London, and by travelling to schools or delivering online sessions, to facilitate informed conversation around migration among children and young people.

South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL) has worked for over 20 years to improve online safety awareness, advising schools, public bodies and technology industries on correct practices and policies for keeping children and young people safe online.

World Jewish Relief has a history of helping refugees integrate into British life dating back to the 1930s and 1940s, and its Specialist Training and Employment Programme (STEP) emerged from efforts to support Syrian refugees in 2015.

In 2012, 40% of children in Merthyr Tydfil were found to be functionally illiterate upon leaving primary school. In response, the Welsh education inspectorate placed the borough council under “special measures”, saying that the council had overseen schools that were “well below average” even accounting for the area’s high levels of deprivation. That same year, the Stephens and George Print Group, a firm based in Merthyr Tydfil, set up a charitable trust to help tackle the area’s education and literacy challenges. Following consultation with schools, social services and others, it put together a three-year strategy incorporating a range of initiatives.

North London-based charity JAN Trust launched its Another Way Forward (AWF) project with the aim to “transform the way we tackle and counter” the growing epidemic of online radicalisation and extremism. AWF seeks to combat the root causes that lead to young women and girls being radicalised, including racism, hate crime and marginalisation, and to develop them into ambassadors against extremism. Its architects believe it is the first project of its kind that encourages young people themselves to lead the narrative – an important factor in its success.

The ‘Restart a Heart’ campaign proved to be a great success, exceeding its training goal by more than 45,000 students. Across the UK over 195,000 young people received CPR training, including some 30,000 students across the West Midlands alone. A further 19,000 also joined up to play on The Resuscitation Council’s free app: Lifesaver, which teaches the techniques of CPR on smartphones, tablets or online. This whole programme – which has no doubt already saved lives – was achieved with an outlay of just over £15,000.

The Clink Charity was set up to reduce reoffending rates, which remain stubbornly and startlingly high. The most recent figures show that 44 of every hundred adults released from custody go on to reoffend within a year. The figure is higher for prisoners sentenced to less than a year. The charity provides a vocational scheme which prepares prisoners for a professional working environment though hands-on experience in its chain of restaurants, which offer fine dining to paying customers.

The Boxing Academy is a nationally-recognised school, with the ethos and feel of a boxing gym. It has developed a unique method for engaging vulnerable and challenging students. Since 2010, 90 per cent of them have progressed to further education, training or employment. The Academy employs an intensive mentoring system within a framework of small class sizes, high-quality teaching, personal support and daily exercise to help even the most difficult-to-reach children reengage with their education. Daily boxing training delivered by ex-professional boxers means pupils can expend their energy purposefully, and learn teamwork, discipline an

Parkinson’s UK developed an accredited learning programme for care staff after carrying out a survey which revealed that many sufferers felt care was not being provided by people who understood the condition. The charity also discovered that there was no accredited learning available.