Two people sitting on purple stools in front of shelves of books. The person on the right has a yellow soft toy sitting on their lap. The person on the left has a small child sitting on their lap.

Nominations open for Bookbug Hero Award 2024 – here’s everything you need to know

Posted 13.10.23 by Alice Hinds

The Scottish Book Trust has launched the fifth annual Bookbug Hero Award, and is now calling on people to nominate practitioners who use reading to improve the lives of children and families across Scotland.

Run in association with Walker Books, publishers of award-winning authors including Anthony Horowitz, Angie Thomas and Cassandra Clare, the Bookbug Hero Award 2024 is open to librarians, early years workers, volunteers, health visitors or anyone who uses Bookbug to enhance literacy programmes within the local community.

The biggest nationwide universal book gifting programme in the world, Bookbug sees every child in Scotland receive four free book bags between their birth and first year of school, and around 375 Bookbug Sessions take place each week in libraries and community spaces across Scotland, while Bookbug for the Home practitioners also support families on a one-to-one basis.

Nominations are open from now until Friday 10 December 2023, and the winner will be celebrated with a short film made about their work, as well as a special trophy and a bundle of picture books worth £500.

Marc Lambert, CEO of Scottish Book Trust, the national charity changing lives with reading and writing, said: “Bookbug reaches children all over Scotland, providing vital access to books. Without the work of Bookbug practitioners, many families would not discover the fun and lifechanging benefits of sharing stories, songs and rhymes. It is fantastic to be able to recognise this important work through the Bookbug Hero Award, for the fifth time. Our thanks to Walker Books for their continued support in recognising these heroes.”

The team at Walker Books added: “We really appreciate all that Bookbug and the heroes who run the programmes do for communities, and we are really pleased that we can continue to show our appreciation and support of that work by sponsoring the award. We love that it shines a light on those practitioners who champion reading, and work tirelessly to change lives through stories and can’t wait to hear more about the next winner!”

Librarian Ian Keane, winner of the Bookbug Hero Award 2022, said tacking home the prize had a huge impact on his local community – and even saw more people come to his library.

“Our library service was losing the battle and losing the war on maintaining Public Services,” he said. “To have a national agency declare that you and your service are doing great was a shock (a good one).

“It reinvigorated the whole team, it inspired us to work harder, we nearly doubled the number of attendees in the 'Hero' year. It has recalled us to life and reminded us of our relevance and worth. The war for public service is still being fought but thanks to the Bookbug Hero Award, for a little while at least we won our battles and found new strength. It won't be long before the early Bookbug toddlers return with their children. Hopefully, if we keep winning, the Library and our team will be there to greet them.”

For more information and to nominate your local Bookbug Hero, click here to visit the Scottish Book Trust website

Want to discover more about how reading can improve children’s lives? At Children in Scotland’s up-coming Early Years Conference 2023, author Laura Henry-Allain MBE, creator of the JoJo and Gran Gran characters, will deliver a keynote address, sharing her personal story of growing up as a working-class, dyslexic child on a council estate in west London, as well as the importance of diversity and inclusion in education. Click here to book your place

Pink and orange text on a white background 'I am super excited to be delivering a keynote speech at the Early Years Conference. The conference is a must for anyone who works within early years education, irrespective of their role. Laura Henry-Allain MBE keynote speaker. On the right an image of a smiling person with long black hair. The image sits inside a pink speech mark. Along the bottom white text on a green background Children in Scotland's Early Years Conference

All local services providing childcare or play for children and young people need to be ‘here to stay’: funded on a long-term, secure basis, major four-year project finds

4 February 2021

MEDIA RELEASE

The final report of a major Scottish childcare project makes a series of calls about how to improve childcare in local communities and through changes to national policy.

CHANGE (Childcare and Nurture, Glasgow East) was set up in 2016 to create a sustainable childcare model with family and community involvement at its core.

Work on the project involved gathering the views of children, parents and local services; setting up a Hub to strengthen local collaboration and challenge childcare barriers identified by families; championing community initiatives and the need for more universal family support; and supporting ‘crisis’ childcare and food provision.

Following four years of work, the project’s final report, ‘It’s our future’: Childcare in Glasgow East, makes a series of recommendations about how to improve childcare, including:

All local services that provide childcare or play for children and young people need to be ‘here to stay’: funded on a long-term, secure basis
The number of available childminders should be increased so that families have more choice about how and when their child is looked after
Out of School Care services must be treated as a core service for it to be sustainable. This should include considering school and community buildings as everyone’s spaces
More opportunities for families to play and learn together must be made available, with all food-related work funded to be part of the mainstream offer
Parents and carers need childcare to enable them to attend emergency appointments and access public services
Families need to be able to access information about childcare that is easy to find and understand. The childcare and family support available must be made easier to navigate for both families and practitioners.

CHANGE found in its project work that local people frequently expressed fatigue about previous interventions that have not improved their lives, and that local staff dealing with stretched resources were often exhausted.

CHANGE staff were also conscious of how issues of class and poverty associated with the project area have been consistently framed in negative terms.

The report calls for the many positive aspects of life in the East End of Glasgow to be celebrated and better understood.

Sally Cavers, Children in Scotland’s Head of Inclusion and CHANGE project lead, said:

“The CHANGE project has sought to address fundamental problems about childcare including fragmented provision, cost, and the need for real community ownership and empowerment. We hope that this report captures the complexity and challenge these issues have presented – but also how much commitment, positivity and expertise communities in Glasgow’s East End possess in answering these problems.

“In terms of improving childcare for families, we need to be focused on the qualities of kindness and dedication we found in the community, and recognise that locally and nationally, we are making progress in improving access to affordable quality childcare.

“However, culture change and real transformation is still required for local services, and huge societal pressures exist for families and services, even more so following a pandemic that represented one of the biggest challenges for generations.”

“As we state in the report, it is our hope that the essence of Glasgow’s East End, combined with effective local and national policy drivers and the possibility of post-pandemic transformation, will result in local community childcare and support services that can thrive.”

The CHANGE project follows work and key recommendations by the Commission for Childcare Reform, which published its findings in 2015.

Click here to download the report

Click here to watch the short animated film and hear community voices on what needs to change

Media contact:

Chris Small, csmall@childreninscotland.org.uk

Further information:

Click here to read more about the CHANGE project
Click here to find out more about Children in Scotland