Anna Morris (Board Member, Friends of hyh fundraiser and iPro Co-ordinator) has recently been awarded second place in the Volunteer of the Year category at the Pro-Action Awards.
The awards are designed to appreciate and celebrate the ‘incredible work done with children and young people in communities across Hertfordshire’ and aim to raise the profile of ‘creative, innovative and passionate youth and children’s work’.
Anna first joined Herts Young Homeless as a volunteer in 2008 after having accessed our services following a period of homelessness. She then volunteered as part of the Service User Involvement Project (iPro), where young people provide hyh with support with recruitment, marketing and get involved with the way services are delivered to young people across Hertfordshire.
In 2012 Anna took on the mammoth role of voluntarily co-ordinating iPro due to funding cuts to the project. Since then, she has dedicated her time to developing the project and supporting the iPro members to attend meetings, access training and as many opportunities as possible, for example membership to the National Youth Reference Group.
Due to the successful expansion of the project, Anna set up an iPro Steering Group where she organises a bank of hyh employees to drive iPro recruitment forward. As a result she has successfully recruited 11 new iPro members in as little as 6 months.
“A former hyh service user who came through very difficult circumstances while growing up, Anna now gives a great deal of her time to hyh and calls on her experience to support young people, many of whom have been in crisis situations themselves. Anna’s qualities of motivation, resilience and commitment contribute to her fine work in further developing hyh’s service-user involvement programme, and to her success as an active member of our Board of Directors. She is an enthusiastic fundraiser on behalf of the charity and a much admired member of the hyh family.” - Glenn Middleton (hyh Chief Executive).
We’d all like to say a massive well done to Anna for this fantastic achievement – thanks for all your hard work!