PossAbilities named one of The Sunday Times best places to work 2025

The categories for the UK Social Enterprise Awards have been created to reflect the diversity within the social enterprise community. More information, including detailed category criteria, can be found on the application portal. Please not that for most of these awards social enterprises need to have been trading for at least two years with the exception of the One to Watch Award. UK Social Enterprise of the Year Sponsored by Keegan & Pennykid The overall award for a social enterprise that has a clear vision, excellence in impact, and that has demonstrated and promoted social enterprise beyond the sector. One to Watch Award Sponsored by PwC The One to Watch Award is for a start-up social enterprise. Key to winning this award is an ability to clearly articulate their future vision and how they are going to achieve it. Prove It: Social Impact Award For a social enterprise that can truly demonstrate and communicate their impact with their stakeholders. ‘Buy Social’ Market Builder Award For a social enterprise, public sector body or private sector organisation that has demonstrably made efforts within its own organisation and remit to create more opportunities to buy from social enterprises. Social Investment Deal of the Year Sponsored by Access and Better Society Capital For an organisation that has been part of a great investment deal in the last 12 months that has helped the social enterprise to grow or the movement as a whole to develop and flourish. Public Services Social Enterprise of the Year Sponsored by GLL For a social enterprise for whom the majority of their income comes from the public sector and which delivers public services (for central or local government, NHS, criminal justice or other statutory body). Consumer Facing Social Enterprise of the Year For a social enterprise that delivers a retail product or service to the general public. Education, Training & Jobs Social Enterprise of the Year For a social enterprise in the education, training or employment sectors that can demonstrate excellence in vision and strategic direction, and clearly evidence their social, environmental and community impact. Environmental Social Enterprise of the Year Sponsored by Landmarc For a social enterprise in the green and environmental sector with a clear evidenced environmental impact. Social Enterprise Building Diversity, Inclusion, Equity & Justice Award Social justice is fundamental to the social enterprise movement. This category is open to all social enterprises who are addressing issues around diversity, inclusion and equity. Social Enterprise Women’s Champion of the Year For a woman working in the senior leadership team of a social enterprise who represents excellence in her field of work. International Impact Award For a social enterprise working internationally, and which are having a big impact in their field. This award is open to UK-based organisations only with existing international operations. Community-Based Social Enterprise of the Year Sponsored by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation This award is for a social enterprise that trades for the benefit of their community, making a real local impact. Social Enterprise Innovation of the Year A new award is recognising a social enterprise that has brought something truly innovative to market in the past year. Tech for Good: Technology Social Enterprise of the Year For a social enterprise that uses technology to achieve social impact.

North East Lincolnshire is pioneering a radical model of mental healthcare that is improving outcomes and cutting waiting times. The key: empowering patients and treating them holistically. The data tells its own story: 94% of emergency mental health referrals seen within four hours compared with just 50% across England. 81% of patients in settled accommodation compared to 24% nationally. Older patients at risk of harming themselves or others are restrained over 50% fewer times than the English average. 80% of staff say they would be happy for a friend or relative to be treated by Navigo compared to the 64% average for mental health providers nationally.* Clearly, Navigo - the social enterprise that delivers mental health services for the NHS in North East Lincolnshire - is making breakthroughs that elude many other providers. What are they doing differently? Jobs, homes, human connection That question is answered succinctly by Simon Beeton - Navigo’s Chief Executive. While conventional mental health services seek to “diagnose, treat, and discharge”, Navigo takes a holistic approach, not only helping people address their mental health condition but also working with them to find “somewhere to live, somewhere to work, and someone to love (or, at least, really get on with!)”. It’s an approach rooted in three transformational observations that fundamentally challenges how healthcare is currently delivered by the NHS. People are complex wholes - treating any medical condition, let alone a mental health one, without understanding the wider context of factors affecting patients’ lives will always be limited in its impact. There are very often social and economic drivers behind poor mental health which simply cannot be ignored when trying to help a person recover: debt, poor housing, unemployment, poverty. Mental health care should be as much about helping people regain a sense of agency and control in their lives as treating the condition. Approaches that reinforce passivity or helplessness can exacerbate as much as ameliorate mental ill-health. For Navigo, that means adopting holistic, empowering treatment frameworks but it also means going much further than conventional mental health services in supporting people. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Tukes. Named after William Tuke - the pioneering mental health campaigner and innovator - the initiative uses Navigo’s resources to help patients secure employment, develop skills and, maybe most importantly, form the human connection that comes from having a job. This is why Navigo - unlike any other NHS mental health service you may have come across - owns a garden centre, a cafe and a cleaning service to provide a job, income and training for their patients. It’s also why Navigo operates as a social landlord, as well as working closely with other social landlords, to provide the affordable, decent accommodation that so many with mental health conditions struggle to find and retain. Lighting a beacon for Barbara That principle of giving people agency and self-efficacy by addressing the wider conditions of their life runs so deep in Navigo that it has shaped its whole corporate structure. Navigo is effectively run as a co-operative that not only gives employees a major say in the organisation but also gives the same rights to patients who can get deeply involved in the running and shaping of the service. Indeed, you are just as likely to hear the people helped by Navigo being referred to, and referring to themselves, as ‘members’ than as ‘patients’. It’s also why Navigo is often described by its people as a ‘community’ or even a ‘family’ rather than a healthcare service or organisation. It’s a model that helps create that crucial space for human connection but is also credited with generating a culture of openness to innovation that drives so much of what Navigo does. Patients inevitably know best what needs to change to improve their experience and hasten their recovery. They also have little tolerance for the usual organisational obstacles placed in the way of necessary improvements. Thus Navigo is always looking to do things the best way they can and, if necessary, cut through the institutional noise that stops that happening. Barbara is a perfect illustration of this principle. Deeply unhappy with the fact that her husband who had severe dementia was being placed in a care home many miles away due to lack of appropriate accommodation, Barbara needed, and demanded, change. Always proactive when the wider system generates a problem, Navigo decided to act. Three new centres were set up providing forty places for older people with dementia and/or mental health conditions all located within North East Lincolnshire. One of the facilities was named Barbara’s Beacon to honour the key role Barbara played in making the change happen. And, of course, the same holistic and empowering approach that runs through all of Navigo’s work underpins the care provided at Barbara’s Beacon and the other new centres. So, Navigo is proving that compassionate, holistic, empowering care for patients need not be sacrificed in the pursuit of a more responsive, efficient service. In fact, the stats quoted at the start of this article show precisely the opposite: that the key to delivering a more responsive, efficient service is precisely that compassionate, holistic, empowering approach. But, after all, those are just stats and abstract principles. Far better to hear how Navigo’s ethos changes lives in practice by listening to Jemma. Jemma came to Navigo as a profoundly shy and fearful person with borderline personality disorder. But over time she changed: increasingly helping other Navigo members deal with their challenges, she ultimately set up and ran a support group for people who self harm. Her story provides an eloquent insight into the “big family” that is Navigo and the way it transforms lives. You can find plenty of other testimonies from staff and members alongside Jemma’s on the same YouTube channel. *Data sourced from What Makes Us Navigo. By Adam Lent This case study forms part of a series we are producing together with the healthcare consultancy Baxendale and think tank King’s Fund, to demonstrate the innovation shown by social enterprises delivering health and social care.

His Majesty The King visited Impact Hub Yorkshire today (15 May 2025) to meet with individuals and organisations helped by the social enterprise and mark its transition to a Yorkshire-wide entity. During his visit, The King unveiled a special plaque to mark both the five-year anniversary of the Impact Hub, and its transition from Impact Hub Bradford to Impact Hub Yorkshire. Founded during the pandemic, over the past five years Impact Hub Bradford has helped thousands individuals and hundreds businesses. Part of a wider network of 120 Impact Hubs globally, Impact Hub Yorkshire is just one of four in the UK.  The Impact Hub network forms the largest collective of impact makers globally, and have a strong focus on people and planet, whether that be helping to connect different communities, or change the lives of individuals and businesses for the better, in a sustainable way.  Impact Hub Yorkshire’s CEO and founder, Kamran Rashid said: “It was an honour to host His Majesty The King at Impact Hub Yorkshire’s offices here in Little Germany, Bradford, and show him the work our organisation does. “Our members spoke passionately about their own experiences and the projects that Impact Hub has helped to facilitate. Having the recognition of this visit is an important milestone for us all, as we look towards an exciting future helping individuals and organisations throughout Yorkshire.” Amongst the organisations introduced to The King, and supported by the Impact Hub, were Green Street; Pandoras Box Deserts; Tasif Khan Community Boxing Academy; IK School of Tailoring; and the African Caribbean Achievement Project.  The work Impact Hub Yorkshire delivers is as varied as it is extensive.  The social enterprise has recently led a project focussed on bringing regeneration and inward investment to Little Germany, the area of the city centre that the Impact Hub is based in. This has included shining a spotlight on this important heritage asset, which has the highest density of listed buildings in Europe.  The King last visited Little Germany in 2008, then as Prince Charles, when he spoke passionately about the area’s rich architectural heritage.  Other projects led by Impact Hub Yorkshire have included supporting boxer Tasif Khan on a number of initiatives, which has included community outreach and education resources, aimed at inspiring young people to create a positive impact on the city.  The change to Impact Hub Yorkshire will allow the organisation to scale up what it is able to deliver, both in terms of size of project and geography. Impact Hub Yorkshire will further celebrate its five years of success at a special gala dinner in June – the first evening dinner to be hosted at the refurbished ballroom at Bradford Live.