Self Management Awards 2025

Who do you know who has made a difference for people in Scotland this year? Maybe someone you know has shown exceptional self management in the face of adversity, or a project has provided exceptional support for you to self manage. Celebrate their achievements at the Self Management Awards by nominating the people and projects you know who have contributed the most to self management in Scotland over the past year.

The nomination form is available to download at the bottom of this page.

Self Management in the Community – in partnership with the ALLIANCE Links Worker Programme.

The shortlist for this award will open to public vote.

Self management is about working in partnership with services that can support individuals to be in the driving seat and have a meaningful role in decisions affecting them. This award is an opportunity to highlight projects, local communities or individuals who have worked to create improvements to support people to live well within their community.

This could be initiatives or activities that encourage community empowerment, grow community capacity or encourage local communities to adopt self management approaches.

This award is open to individuals, public libraries, local groups, organisations, projects and people working across health, social care and the third sector.

Moira Anderson Foundation’s Glasgow Hub project was the 2024 winner of this Award. MAF Glasgow Hub opened in April 2023 following a long working partnership with the Links Worker Programme.  They worked together to develop and deliver trauma informed support, therapy, self-management and peer support services for adults in Glasgow living with long-term health conditions because of childhood sexual abuse. 

Self Management Resource – in partnership with ALISS (A Local Information System for Scotland)

This award recognises the resources (on and offline) that genuinely add value to the lives of individuals, enable staff working in health and social care to deliver services more effectively and provide invaluable information, support and advice on self management.

The 2024 winner was the End of Life Aid Skills for Everyone (EASE) course   from the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care (SPPC).  It is an innovative course enabling people across Scotland to be more comfortable and confident supporting family and community members with issues they face during dying, death and bereavement.

Self Management Digital Innovator – in partnership with the ALLIANCE Digital Hub.

Digital tools have changed the way many people self manage and can provide support that would not be otherwise possible. What have you seen this year that has stood out as an innovative in the use of digital technology?

This award is for individuals or organisations who have found innovative ways of helping people self manage using digital technology. Examples of innovation could be finding new ways of working digitally, creative uses of existing technology, or reaching out to new audiences through digital means.

The Black Door Shop was the winner in 2024.  It is a vibrant charity that thrives on the generosity of the local community, collecting donations of computers/laptops, clothing, books, toys, tools, bedding and household items. These contributions primarily support asylum seekers and refugees, many of whom arrive with few possessions, and often little more than a sense of hope.

Audrey Birt Self Management Champion – in partnership with Humans of Scotland.

This award has been renamed to honour Audrey’s considerable contribution to health and social care in Scotland, following her sad passing in 2024.  It celebrates people who are helping to encourage and inspire others to self manage and spread the self management message, along with anyone who has made positive change to their lives by taking a self management approach; living their life better, on their terms.

Cor Hutton, the founder of Finding Your Feet, was the winner of this award in 2024.  Cor underwent quadruple amputation of her hands and legs below the knee following sepsis in 2013.  Within a year of this life-threatening event, showing unfaltering determination, Cor established a charity to support others to live well despite the challenges of experiencing and living with limb loss. 

Who do you know that encourages individuals to self manage? Who has championed ideas that add value to your work or life? Do they campaign in a way that raises the profile of self management as key role in recovery journeys? Will their story inspire others? 

Empowering Self Management Project – in partnership with the Health and Social Care Academy.

This award aims to highlight the success of any self management project with an empowerment focus in Scotland. 

This award demonstrates the difference such projects make to improve people’s lives, build self management capacity and help to transform health and social care. If your project has empowered individuals, groups or communities to take control over their lives and health, then this is a great way to have it recognised and celebrated alongside the people who made it happen. We want to hear from projects where people felt listened to and been able to change/influence the things that matter most to them! This award recognises projects working in partnership and the role that individuals and communities play in the design and delivery of support and services.  

The Stand by Me project was the 2024 winner. Andrew Doyle is a married man with a learning disability who has a diagnosis of dementia. When he and his wife Lynn looked for support for couples with a learning disability in their situation, there was none. Their experience, and the desire that other couples in the same situation had information to turn to, was the driver for the project.

This award is open to any project which focusses on empowering the people it supports through self management.

Sensory Loss: Positive Self Management – in partnership with the Scottish Sensory Hub.

This award aims to raise the profile of the good self management work being done in the sensory impairment sector throughout Scotland. Do you know someone who is supporting people with sensory impairment to positively self manage? Someone who has challenged and changed disabling barriers to inclusion of, and participation by, people with sensory impairment in various aspects of everyday life? Someone who is managing their own sensory impairment exceptionally well and deserves to be celebrated?

Deaf Links, based in Dundee won the 2024 award in particular for two partnership projects to support Deaf women to self manage and live well. These are the Deaf Women’s Health Project (with support from local healthcare practitioners) and the Violence Against Deaf Women Project (in partnership with Angus Women’s Aid, Dundee Women’s Aid and Perth’s Women’s Aid).

This award is open to anyone with personal and/or professional involvement in the sensory impairment sector across Scotland.

Self Management through the Arts – in partnership with ALLIANCE Live.

This award celebrates people or projects who support people, to take part in, watch or otherwise use the arts to support self management.

Do you know a person or project that puts on musical theatre performances? Teaches music? Created a space for people to express themselves through drawing and painting or crafts? We want to celebrate all the work being done to bring people to the arts and bring the arts to people.

The 2024 winner of this award was Art in Healthcare who were nominated for their art workshops which included three main strands; ‘Caring Spaces’; a project throughout Lothian working with adult unpaid carers, ‘Taking Art Home’; Scotland wide online workshops for those that due to health, find it very difficult to leave the house and their largest project ‘Room for Art’, a social prescription project across Edinburgh. 

This award is open to any people or projects using the arts (including visual arts, theatre, music) to support self management.

The Self Management Awards 2025 are open for nominations from 7 May until 10am, 11 June.