Excellence Network Awards stories: Community support, Mali Jenkins and Sharing learning and education
Let's catch up with more of the winners of these awards to see what they've been doing since the 2025 Awards ceremony.
Community support winners
Sandville Self Help Foundation won our Community support award. Here's their story so far.
Sandra Owen, CEO, reminisces about the Awards and talks about how things have progressed at the centre since their win.
Incredibly proud
When we heard we had won, we were absolutely delighted and incredibly proud to receive the Community support award. It was a wonderful recognition of the dedication, compassion and hard work of everyone involved in Sandville Self Help Foundation. Most importantly, it celebrates the difference we are able to make in the lives of people affected by Parkinson's. We are truly grateful and honoured to have been recognised.
Our award success was highlighted on social media and our website, and the award is proudly displayed within the Centre for everyone to see.
Committed to placements for professionals and students
Since receiving the award, we have continued to build on the work recognised by the Parkinson's UK Excellence Network. We continue to receive referrals from health boards across South and West Wales and remain committed to offering placements to health professionals and students. These placements provide an opportunity to spend time at the Centre, gaining valuable insight while offering education, information and support to those with lived experience of Parkinson's.
We've found that the recognition symbolised by the Community support award has reinforced our commitment to improving the lives of people living with Parkinson's and has given us even greater motivation to continue developing and expanding the support we provide.
Looking ahead
We want to reach more people, strengthen our links with health professionals and continue providing accessible education, information and support to ensure that everyone living with Parkinson's receives the best possible care and guidance.
We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved so far and remain committed to making a positive difference to people living with Parkinson's and their families across Wales.
Mali Jenkins winner
The Isle of Wight Parkinson's project won our Mali Jenkins award.
Rebecca Verling of Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust explains what their award means to them.
We all felt amazing when our name was called out. The awards ceremony itself was so special and celebratory.
Being a community-led project, many of the people involved in the project are not part of our Trust and they were elated to be recognised alongside us. Our Trust gave us recognition for the award and ran a piece on it in their communications.
Striving for further improvement
Winning this award has given us the confidence to strive for further improvements and we continue to evolve and develop what we do: involving people with Parkinson's and their partners in our work.
Sharing learning and education winner
Emma Edwards works for Livewell Southwest and submitted the winning entry for our Sharing learning and education award.
After the delightful shock of winning the award, I felt so supported at the awards event as people were curious to know what work we had been doing at Livewell Southwest.
Leaning into difficult conversations
I have delivered my suicide awareness training now for the last 6 years to 100's of people who work with people with Parkinson's. It encourages staff that leaning into difficult conversations on how people with the condition are coping can make such a difference and might even save a life.
Winning the award gives me the confidence to continue to "bang the drum" that mental health is as important as physical health, and that as clinicians we need to assess both.
To find out more about our winners read our 2025 Awards news story.
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