An Ashton man is to become the face of social care for a national charity after a photograph of him was picked out from hundreds of competition entries.
39 year old Terence Abbot was snapped by one of his support workers polishing off his breakfast in a local supermarket. The image was then entered into ‘A day in your life’, a competition run by the Dartington Hall Trust which aimed to capture typical moments in the lives of adult social care users.
Through its Research in Practice for Adults (RiPFA) arm, the trust works to address social justice issues by providing local authorities with the most up-to-date and relevant social research evidence to support and improve the lives of adult service users. It was RiPFA who last May launched the competition by sending out hundreds of disposable cameras to adults receiving support from local authorities like Wigan.
RiPFA director Alison Petch explains:
“We wanted to let the people we work for tell us about their lives and capture the challenges and triumphs of their day to day reality, in a way that would help improve understanding of our work.”
More than two and a half thousand entries came in from all corners of the country, capturing the very real face of the work of RiPFA through the faces of people who receive vital council services.
Dartington Hall Trust Chief Executive, Vaughan Lindsay adds:
“One of the challenges for research in practice for adults is the lack of engaging images that can be used to communicate their work in Social Justice. The ‘A Day in Your Life’ competition is the perfect example of where innovation meets genuine need – and a real impact can and has been made.”
After being inundated with many brilliant and powerful pictures, RiPFA decided to award two top prizes: one for an individual photo and one for a series. Terence Abbot won the individual award and will receive a digital camera at a special award ceremony in Wigan this week (Wednesday 1st October).
