Gill Haworth received one of the 205 OBEs awarded and Jan Way received an MBE for services to vulnerable children and families in recognition of their work at the forefront of international adoption services.
Both women have spent their careers in social work, committed to ensuring children from around the world have the opportunity of a secure and loving family.
Gill Haworth OBE was the founder of the Intercountry Adoption Centre (IAC) in 1997 and served as its Chief Executive until her retirement in March this year. She built the charity from a Government-funded helpline for families who had adopted children from overseas to a fully-fledged adoption charity that has supported the placement of nearly 300 children in the UK and abroad.
Gill said: “I am delighted to receive this honour. Children placed through intercountry adoption are amongst the world’s most disadvantaged but they, the families who adopt them and intercountry adoption services as a whole are so often marginalised in the UK.
“This award in large part recognises those amazingly resilient children and families and it will encourage the charity’s continued lobbying for intercountry adopted children to be on an equal footing to other adoptive families when it comes to access to vital services.”
Jan Way has worked for the charity for more than 20 years in many roles but latterly as Training and Development Manager.
Jan said: “I was extremely surprised, but really thrilled, to receive an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. My working life has always been in social work and, since 1987, adoption work, specifically working with families who wish to, or who have adopted from overseas.
“It has been a real honour to work with these families, who have shown such commitment to creating or extending their families in this way. It has always been less of a job of work and more of a passion, and in receiving this I feel I am doing so on behalf of the intercountry adoption community and the many families I have worked with over the years.
“I feel truly blessed to have had a career that I have loved and now, somewhat amazed to be rewarded in this way.”
IAC Chief Executive Satwinder Sandhu said he was delighted for both Gill and Jan to be personally recognised in this way and for the work of IAC to be acknowledged, sentiments strongly endorsed by IAC’s Board of Trustees.
“Gill and Jan have both dedicated their professional lives to making the world a better, safer place for children crossing borders to find their forever families and it is their leadership that has brought IAC to where we are today.
“When no one else was prepared to be a voice for children in intercountry adoption, they worked tirelessly to ensure that all children, including those placed by us within the UK, were being raised in the best adoptive families possible, who were well prepared, assessed and supported.
“These honours represent that dedication and commitment, which has over time reached thousands of children and families. Their legacy of course, shall live on for generations.”
IAC continues to lobby for equal status for children adopted from overseas and for Government funding to assist prospective adopters to undertake the process to change children’s lives.