The Brillies 2023

Our brand new PSS awards are here: introducing The Brilliant Awards

We’re replacing The Big Awards with a brand new set of PSS awards, designed to recognise the people across PSS who have given their all in their roles and been, well, brilliant. Welcome to The Brilliant Awards (or The Brillies, for short).

What’s different?

All-new award categories that focus on important areas of PSS work
New judging criteria, making it easier to nominate and pick winners
One winner per category
Guaranteed winners from each of our directorates
New judging process including special guest judges
Shorter award ceremony
Increased prizes

Our new categories

Star of the Year Award

A Star of the Year award will be given to one person from each of our directorates this year. That means there will be one Star of the Year from central services, one from Home and Communities, one from Shared Lives and one from Strengthening Families.

Our panel of judges will be looking for nominees from each directorate who:

work brilliantly with others – they’re real team player;
go above and beyond – making a real difference for their team, colleagues or people we support; and
have really stepped up to the plate when faced with a challenge or a need to be creative.

Winners chosen by: our award-winning panel (including last year’s Big Awards winners from all areas of PSS)

Brilliant Leadership Award

Anyone can be a leader – you don’t have to have the word ‘manager’ or ‘team leader’ in your job title. This isn’t a category just for people in management roles.

Our Brilliant Leadership Award is for someone who shows leadership skills by being:

truly caring and willing to help others;
a problem-solver who look at things creatively;
a brilliant communicator – giving clarity around what they’re doing and what they need from others;
someone who does things with people, not to them;
someone who lives by their values and inspires others to be their best selves; and
the glue in their team and keeping everyone working well together.

Winner chosen by: leadership expert Barry Dore

The Thinking Big Award:

This one’s for the ideas people. The Thinking Big award will go to someone who has:

been brave enough to go outside of their comfort zone this year, even if they thought they might fail; and
come up with an idea – big or small – that has made a difference to how things are done with their team or at PSS, to other people’s lives, to our sector, to the planet we live on.

Winner chosen by: our leadership team

Pride of PSS Award:

An award for someone who’s all the PSS values rolled into one: big-hearted, open-minded, determined, genuine and professional.

Our Shared Lives carers can nominate a PSS teammate in this category if they want to.

Winners chosen by: our trustees

Volunteer of the Year Award:

You’ll be voting for that truly brilliant someone who gives their time to make a difference to the lives of other or help make PSS a better place.

Winners chosen by: you, in a staff vote

The Working Together Award:

This award’s for someone who’s brilliant at co-production. The winner will be someone who has:

worked closely with people we support to make a positive difference to their life or to the services we offer;
supported people who use our service to have a voice at PSS and/or in their community; and
pushed the boundaries to support people to do what they love, despite any challenges that came their way.

Winner chosen by: a panel of people we support

The Belonging Award:

Our Belonging Award is for someone brilliant who has:

gone the extra mile to learn how they can be more equitable and inclusive in their service or the way they do things;
made changes within their service or to the way they do things to become more equitable and inclusive;
shown commitment to helping PSS become a more equitable, diverse and inclusive place to be; and
gone out of their way to help others feel like they belong at PSS.

Winner chosen by: our leadership team

Rules

You must be able to explain in detail how the person you’re nominating meets the award criteria and tell us in your nomination.
You can nominate as many people as you like for an award, including two people in the same category, but…

You must only nominate one person per nomination you send in – please don’t nominate two people in the same nomination. If you’re nominating two people for the same award, you need to nominate each of them separately.
Shared Lives carers can’t be nominated for Brilliant Award. Carers will have their own awards ceremony.
If your nomination leads to the person you nominate winning the award, you may be asked to record your nomination on video for the ceremony.
Shared Lives carers can only nominate PSS staff members for the Pride of PSS Award.
Nominations must be sent in on or before 10 November 2023.

More info in our FAQs below.

How to nominate

Tell us who you’re nominating and what team they work in.
Tell us which award you want to nominate them for.
Tell us in detail how the person you’re nominating meets the criteria. Remember that we have some guest judges this year who won’t know a single thing about the person you’re nominating or what they do in their role at all – except for what you tell them in your nomination. Nominations that don’t tell us much detail about why the nominee deserves to win are unlikely to be chosen. The more evidence and explanation you can give, the better chance you have of the judges choosing them.

Send your nomination in as either a video (no more than three minutes), a voice note (no more than three minutes) or a written piece (no more than one side of A4) to thebrillies@pss.org.uk, or send it via WhatsApp to 07928653917.

When will winners be announced?

Winners will be announced at our awards ceremony happening in February.

FAQS

Do I have to nominate someone for an award?

No, it’s entirely up to you if you feel you’d like to nominate someone, but it’s a lovely way to say thank you to the people you work with. Lots of our past award-winners have told us just how amazing it was to be recognised.

I’m a Shared Lives carer can I nominate a PSS staff member?

Yep, you can only nominate a staff member in the Pride of PSS Award category.

Can people we support nominate staff members?

To keep things fair and simple, the Brillies are for staff and volunteer nominations only (with the exception of the Pride of PSS Award which Shared Lives carer can nominate a staff member), but people we support are involved in judging the Working Together Award.

Can volunteers nominate PSS staff?

As important members of the team, volunteers are welcome to nominate in any of the categories.

Can Shared Lives carers be nominated for any of the awards?

Carers who have given their time for PSS outside their roles as Shared Lives carers can be nominated for Volunteer of the Year. All of the other awards are for PSS staff only. Shared Lives carers will have their own awards programme next year.

Can I nominate more than one person in a category?

Yes, you can nominate more than one person in a category, but the nominations must be sent in separately.

Do I have to record a video?

This year we’ve expanded our nominations to include video (no more than three minutes), voice notes (no more than three minutes) and written nominations (no more than one page of A4 per nomination).

If your nomination wins, we may ask you to record a video to be shown at the ceremony.

What will award winners get?

Award winners will be given vouchers between £50 and £100.