Independent Living Heart Award

The Independent Living Heart Award will be awarded to young members who can show they have taken steps towards an empowered independence.

This could be awarded once a young person has shown they have an understanding of their medications and has learnt to remember to take their medicine at the right time.
It might be awarded to a young person who is doing their own INR.
It could be awarded to someone who is facing head-on a test or operation following a needle or hospital phobia.
It might be awarded to children and young people who have taken part in the LHM Energy Project or who understands the spoon theory and uses it to help manage their energy levels and explain their energy levels to other people.
It might be someone who has attended a new Sports and Exercise or Your Heart session.

Their teachers, doctors, nurses, psychologists, play specialists or activity leaders will need to tell us about how much they think each young person has learnt and how much they understand.

This award aims to encourage children and young adults to take steps towards understanding their responsibility within their medical and lifestyle care. When a young person makes the move from children’s services to adult care it is essential that they have a full understanding of their heart condition and what it means for them otherwise they are unable to take an active part in their future health care.

Who is eligible for an award?

Little Hearts Matter child and young adult members with a single ventricle heart condition can be nominated for the Independent Living Heart Award.

All nominees have to be 8 to 18 years old.

There is no restriction on the number of times a child or young adult can be nominated for an award but the nomination must be for a different activity or newly learnt skill.

Who can make an application?

Award nominations for the Independent Living Heart Award must be made by:

Parents, nurses, doctors, psychologists, teachers, club leaders or LHM staff. They can put children or young adults living with a single ventricle heart condition up for an award by completing and submitting one of the following applications.

If a parent or family member submits the nomination, the application must be supported with information and evidence from an independent representative. The application needs to clearly demonstrate how the child or young adult has increased their knowledge and involvement in their heart care and how they have used that knowledge to clearly take great steps forward. If the information is not clear the applicant may be asked to reapply at a later date.

A visit to the hospital would not automatically count for an award but it the child/young adult nomination can show how their knowledge has grown during a hospital stay, for example learning to do their own INR tests or getting involved in decision making about their care, or perhaps how they have conquered a fear of needles or treatments. Their doctors or nurses can add to the application to strengthen the nomination.

Application dates

Applications will be assessed by a team of independent assessors taken from within the charity and one external assessor from outside teh organisation.

Applications will be assessed twice a year so nominations need to reach the team by the end of the following months:

January – February
September to October

The applications will be assessed by a team of young adult members, LHM staff and Trustees. They will use a clear scoring system to make sure that every application is treated fairly.

There will be no upper limit to the number of awards made each month.

If an application misses an application deadline it will be forwarded to the next quarterly assessment.

Awareness of the award and the prize winners

Little Hearts Matter wants to be able to applaud the Brave Heart Winners because of their success.

A designated platform for the awards will be created within the Youth Zone section of the charity’s website which will be linked from the front page of the website.

All awards will be announced within LHM internet and social media sites.

If consent has been given by the award winner and their parents/guardians, a profile of each award winner will be posted as part of a quarterly award announcement.

Press support will be offered to each child if they or their family wish to highlight the award within local press and a school’s information pack will be made available to raise the profile of the award and the charity within each recipient’s school.

To nominate a child or young adult for the Independent Living Heart Award please complete and submit the application form below:

Brave Heart Awards - Application Form

Details of the child/young person being put forward to receive an award(Required)

First name Last name

Address(Required)

Street Address Address Line 2 City ZIP / Postal Code

Age(Required)

Which award are you nominating the young person for?(Required)

Details of the person nominating a child or young person for the award

Your name(Required)

First Last

Your relationship to the young person(Required)

Email Address(Required)

Phone Number(Required)

Please tell us why they deserve this award, in no more than 300 words(Required)

Please provide a quote that can be used when describing the child or young person(Required)

Ask a teacher, doctor, nurse, club leader or independent professional to complete this section to add more information about the achievements of the child or young person This section does not need to be completed if the person nominating the child or young person above is already independent of the family.

Name

First Last

Job Title

Email Address

Telephone Number

Please tell us why this child or young person deserves this award (in no more than 300 words)

Consent

Publicity - If further publicity is planned would you be happy to be contacted by the charity?

I agree to the LHM photo permission statement

I don't agree

Child/Young Person or Parental consent.

I agree to the nomination.

I don't agree to the nomination.