Winners of the BASW Social Work Journalism Awards 2025
Now in its third year, the BASW Social Work Journalism Awards were launched to celebrate nuanced, informed and balanced reporting that demonstrates a keen understanding of the profession and the people who use services.
Entries and nominations were sought across eight categories covering mainstream print and broadcast, regional print and broadcast, trade journalism, podcasts and TV drama, from April 2024 to April 2025.
The finalists attended a special awards reception at BASW’s annual conference, which this year was held in Manchester on 10 June. An additional award was presented on the night for outstanding contribution to journalism to Sarah Nelson.
Winners
Written journalism in regional media
Editor Graeme Brown and his team at Birmingham Live for an illustrative and engaging campaign that highlighted child poverty in Birmingham and the West Midlands
Written journalism in national media
Rosa Silverman, for her insightful feature entitled How Britain’s social services are failing – and Sara Sharif is the tip of the iceberg in The Daily Telegraph, which despite a misleading headline, dived into social work’s challenges following the headline grabbing death of a child.
Broadcast journalism in national media
Dan Hewitt, for his ITV News exclusive look at burnout in social workers using new research and compelling first-person narratives from professionals on the frontline
Broadcast journalism in regional media
Lucy Kapasi, for her exploration of immersive 360 degree training that gives social workers a front row seat to frontline, which featured on ITV Central
Trade press news
Hannah Crown, for an article entitled Making children’s services leadership more diverse, which probed how to make social work leadership more diverse in Children and Young People Now
Lived experience (nuanced depiction of people social workers support)
Judges could not separate two entries so a joint award was given to Tamsin Melville, for the BBC Spotlight South West collobrative work with the Family DASA Project (domestic abuse), and Ashley John-Baptiste, for his BBC Radio 4, File on Four work, Detained and restrained: Britain’s vulnerable kids
Podcast
Pod Save the UK podcast episode Nish Kumar – the new James Bond? walked away with the prize for a segment interviewing Lemn Sissay and Rebekah Pierre on children in care.
Television
The immersive and intelligent three part BBC One production Lost Boy and Fairies on was a standout winner.
Speaking at the awards ceremony, Dr Ruth Allen, Chief Executive of BASW, said:
“The journalists, producers, podcastsers and dramatists honoured in these awards have all shown an understanding of our profession, including the positive impact we have on the people we serve, as well as the challenges. They have created insightful pieces of work with nuance and balance and for that we give them our thanks and respect.”
John McGowan, General Secretary of the Social Workers Union which is supporting BASW in the awards, said:
“As one of the judges of these awards it was fantastic to see such a great range of work depicting our profession in a fair and accurate way.
“The general public is influenced by what it reads, sees and hears in the media and through drama so these mediums play a significant part in shaping their perceptions. It is important that we see more positive representations of social work, what we do and what we stand for. These are here to honour that.”
