Seashell Trust celebrate Award!

21 December 2011

Emma Davies, Ged Mason, Lord Davies

Seashell Trust in Cheadle Hulme, a charity that helps children and young people with some of the most complex needs and communication disabilities, is celebrating further success as it has received a Karten Award for the achievements of Emma Davies, a student who has successfully completed her course at Royal College Manchester.

The Ian Karten Charitable Trust equipped an IT Suite at the Royal College Manchester with adaptive computer technology to create a supported learning environment. It is one of only six centres in the North West to have the specialised technology which gives Emma and the other students a chance to achieve independence through developing CVs and job applications for work placements.

During her final year at college, Emma along with her peers attended a Valuing Employment Seminar at the Royal College Manchester, where businesses were invited to see what type of work students were accessing. The students communicated with the attendees about their college work placements, showed short video clips of their work and distributed their CVs.

As a result Emma was successfully interviewed for a role at Morson International and is now a paid and valued part-time member of staff.

Maureen Wilkins, Transitions Co-ordinator at Seashell Trust says ‘Emma is a remarkable young woman who has made such an impact on the Seashell Trust as well as her own life and is an inspiration to all who meet her. I was honoured to accept the Transition Award on behalf of Emma and the Royal College Manchester. It perfectly reflects the outstanding work and commitment of the staff and students and I felt so proud to be a part of Seashell Trust'.

Attendees at the conference were from as far afield as Israel and Ireland and all were very worthy contenders, demonstrating what a great local success story the Seashell Trust is.

Ceri Hibbert, Network Development Manager at The Karten Network said ‘We were delighted to be able to award the Success in Transition Award to Seashell Trust and student Emma Davies. The judges felt that Emma, with the support of Seashell Trust, had made enormous progress and wanted to recognise the work that the Seashell Trust had done to enable her wonderful achievements'.

Ged Mason, CEO of Morson International commented ‘It is quite clear from Emma's work ethic that young adults with more complex needs are quite able to fulfill certain tasks to the same level as other staff. I would encourage all companies to consider working with charities such as Seashell Trust to give disabled young people a chance to prove that they have ability to enter the place of work.'

Emma received the award on behalf of Seashell Trust from Lord Davies of Coity, one of the Seashell Trust's Presidents, at a ceremony at Morson International.