Ask anyone with a parent in aged care, and there will almost always be one staff member that stands out above the rest.
The carer who learned Dad’s footy team so they’d always have something to talk about. The nurse who rang after hours just to say Mum had finished her whole dinner. The kitchen hand who knew exactly how she liked her tea, and never once had to be reminded.
Most families say thank you with a card or a box of chocolates at Christmas. Then life moves on, and the moment passes. The worker goes back to the next shift, and the next, without ever really knowing what they meant to you.
A new national awards program wants to change that. The Hearts & Heroes of Aged Care Awards will hold their first ever awards night at the Mercure Sydney on Friday 12 March 2027. Nominations are open now, and anyone can make one.
The awards began with a night overseas. In October 2025, Julie Hogarth-Williams, founder and CEO of The SeniorsChannel, gave the keynote at an aged care awards night in London. She watched admin staff, lifestyle teams and carers walk up to accept awards, some in tears, and saw what being recognised meant to them.
The UK has been celebrating its aged care workforce this way for more than 20 years. Australia had nothing like it.
“I came home and I could not let it go,” Julie says. “Our people give so much of themselves every single day. Who was saying thank you to them on a national scale?”
She joined forces with three other women who have spent their careers in the sector: clinical quality and compliance mentor Libby Hema-Lewis, registered nurse and gerontologist and founder of People First Nursing, Nicole Smith, and dementia care specialist Tejwant Kaur, founder of Jiya. Together, they built the awards from scratch.
What makes these awards different is who they include. Aged care doesn’t run on clinical staff alone, and residents know it. The cleaner who stops for a chat might be the only visitor someone sees all week. The cook who remembers a resident’s favourite meal is giving them a small taste of home.
That’s why there are 12 categories, covering almost everyone who walks through the door of an aged care home:
Aged care workers do some of the hardest, most emotional work there is, often for modest pay and with little public credit. The organisers want the awards to lift morale, encourage more people into the sector, and shift how Australians see aged care work: from invisible to invaluable.
Royal Freemasons’ Benevolent Institution (RFBI), which has cared for older Australians for more than 146 years, is the awards’ Champion Sponsor. Its CEO, Frank Price, will give the keynote on the night. RFBI already runs its own staff awards, and Frank has seen the effect first-hand.
“They stand a little taller and remember why they chose this work,” he says.
Nominating is free and takes just a few minutes. Families, residents, colleagues and managers are all welcome to put someone forward. Nominations close on 11 January 2027.
If you’re not sure what to write, a few tips can help your nomination stand out:
You don’t need to be a great writer. You just need to mean it.
“A nomination says, I see you. What you do matters,” says Julie. “For someone who has quietly given their heart to this work for years, that can mean everything.”
Finalists will be invited to the awards night in Sydney, and they attend for free. Their seats are covered by Fund a Finalist sponsors, so that frontline workers from across the country can be in the room for their big moment. For many, it will be their first trip to Sydney.
Businesses and organisations that want to back the aged care workforce can sponsor a finalist’s seat or take up other packages, starting from $1,200. Details are at hhacawards.com/sponsorship-selection-menu.
But for families, the most powerful thing you can do costs nothing. Think of the person who made a hard time a little easier. Then take five minutes, and tell the country about them.
