Council worker helping homeless into housing leads the way in awards celebration

A TAMESIDE homelessness worker has won an award after helping more than 100 people out of rough sleeping and into settled accommodation over the last year.

Tameside Council Rough Sleeper Co-ordinator Tom Butterworth was honoured at the Council’s first ever STRIVE Awards for his exceptional service.

Tom has been described as “a wonderful member of staff” whose incredible achievements are a result of his person-centred approach that has been life changing for those he’s worked with.

In his work, Tom prioritises prevention of any individual having to sleep rough and, where that’s not possible, aims to ensure that any episode of rough sleeping is rare, brief, and non-recurring. He’s overseen people moving directly from street to home and from emergency accommodation into homes of their own. Data shows the Council is reducing homelessness, whether long-term, entrenched or those returning to rough sleeping, which is against national trends.

The Council’s STRIVE Awards took place at Dukinfield Town Hall on Thursday 27 November and were sponsored by Liberata, Hive Land and Planning, Constellia, Placecube, Robertson, The MJ, Amazon Web Services, and Penna.

The eight awards celebrated the people and teams who bring the Council’s STRIVE values to life – Support, Trust, Respect, Integrity, Value Diversity, and Engage – as well as an overall STRIVE award and a Place-based award inspired by Tameside’s motto Industry and Integrity, to honour work that makes a meaningful difference to residents.

The winners were

• Support: Tameside Carers Centre
• Trust: Tom Butterworth, Rough Sleepers team
• Respect: Lorraine Kitching, Corporate Performance and Intelligence Team
• Integrity: The Registrars Team
• Value Diversity: Joanne Spurgeon, Employment and Skills Team
• Engage: Ayeesha Roberts and Carol Baguley, Public Health Community Engagement Team
• Place-based award: Greenspace Team
• Overall STRIVE award: Chairs of the Council’s Employee Networks.

Nearly 500 peer-to-peer nominations were received recognising outstanding contributions across the workforce and community.

Tameside Council Executive Leader Cllr Eleanor Wills said: “Well done to Tom for his remarkable achievements, which are transforming lives across Tameside. And congratulations to not only all the winners, who each had fantastic success stories on their support to communities around the borough, but to everyone shortlisted and nominated. It shows the depth of appreciation and support for each other’s work that runs throughout the Council.

“These awards are driven by the STRIVE values that are at the heart of everything we do, and they celebrate the people and teams who bring these values to life. They play a key role in maintaining our culture of recognition, appreciation and pride in who we are and what we do.

“I’d like to thank the organisers, and everyone involved, for co-ordinating the awards, and our brilliant sponsors whose generosity enabled us to celebrate our colleague’s achievements.”