Announcing the Winners of the 2025 Global Social Prescribing Impact Awards!
By Gareth Presch & James Sanderson
Published: Friday, July 17, 2026 (Live from the GSPA Summit)
Today, at the 2026 GSPA Summit, the Global Social Prescribing Alliance is incredibly proud to officially unveil the winners of the 2025 Social Prescribing Impact Awards.
Our executive panel reviewed an extraordinary group of 15 final submissions spanning the globe. Each nominee was strictly evaluated against our six core pillar criteria: Innovation, Impact, Equity, Collaboration, Leadership, and Evidence. Using a standardized 30-point scoring matrix (where each pillar is scored out of 5), our judges arrived at a verified final slate of winners.
These awards honor the visionary individuals, grassroots teams, and large-scale organizations proving that true health and wellbeing begin within the community. Please join us in celebrating our 2025 cohort!
🏆 The 2025 Official Winners Slate
1. Global Social Prescribing Innovation Award
Winner: Kate Shepherd Cohen – Menstrual Cycle Support (MCS)
The Deciding Factor: MCS pioneered a vital, untackled health domain by launching the world’s first menstrual literacy program on social prescription. It has successfully scaled from a local innovation into a UK-wide model available across 500+ GP surgeries, schools, and NHS Women’s Health Hubs. Crucially, the initiative features robust, independent, NHS-approved evaluation metrics proving a statistically significant improvement in patient outcomes.
“I am deeply honored to accept the Global Social Prescribing Innovation Award. At Menstrual Cycle Support, our goal was to bridge the gap in menstrual health literacy. Seeing our framework scale from a local initiative to a national structure across over 500 GP surgeries, school networks, and NHS Women’s Health Hubs has been an incredible journey. This award is a testament to the power of integrating specialized support into social prescribing to truly meet people where they are.”
**Kate Shepherd Cohen – Menstrual Cycle Support **
2. Global Social Prescribing Changemaker Award
Winner: Jutsna Khan – eQuality Primary Care Network (eQualityPCN)
The Deciding Factor: Jutsna Khan’s phenomenal 28-year track record of grassroots leadership represents the absolute epitome of community empowerment. Dedicated to breaking down cultural, linguistic, and structural barriers for South Asian and marginalized women, her tailored health hubs, community festivals, and independent digital platforms now directly reach over 100,000 people monthly.
- Special Commendation: The panel also issues a high commendation to Duaa Mohamed Suliman (Emirates Health Services) for her brilliant work establishing green and planetary social prescriptions in the MENA region.
3. Global Social Prescribing Connector Award
Winner: Norwegian Red Cross (Bergen Project)
The Deciding Factor: In a remarkably close head-to-head field, the Norwegian Red Cross clinched the award for their masterful ability to build cross-sector structures. By perfectly aligning healthcare networks, local community volunteers, and academic researchers (led by Prof. Roger Henriksen), they have successfully deployed a large-scale, sustainable intervention to directly combat social isolation and loneliness across Norway.
“We are incredibly proud to accept this award for our work in Bergen. Our initiative demonstrates that when we structurally align researchers with community volunteers, we can effectively alleviate loneliness on an institutional scale. This is more than a project; it is a blueprint for the future of social prescribing, and we are honored to be recognized by the GSPA.”
Roger Ekeberg Henriksen, RN, PhD, Associate Professor
4. Global Social Prescribing Researcher/Research Team Award
Winner: Sociedade Portuguesa de Literacia em Saúde (SPLS)
The Deciding Factor: Emerging as our verified winner, SPLS has set a benchmark for translating academic data into policy. Their rigorous, systematic research and evaluation of integrated physical and cultural frameworks for elderly cancer survivors successfully moved their “From Steps to Embraces” program directly into Portugal’s active aging national framework.
5. Global Student Champion Award
Winner: Quiet Hour, Near Bridge (Ken Beller)
The Deciding Factor: Quiet Hour won praise from our committee for beautifully bridging the gap between student education and immediate public health action. By packaging dense nature-based healing modalities into a highly accessible, 1-hour on-demand video training model complete with an audio app, they have empowered students and early practitioners to seamlessly guide nature prescriptions in any community setting globally.
A Final Word from GSPA Leadership
“Reviewing the 2025 submissions has been a humbling reminder of the sheer power of multi-sectoral collaboration. Every single nominee, winner, and runner-up represents a vital piece of a larger global movement toward a more empathetic, inclusive, and person-centered healthcare paradigm. We stand firmly behind the mathematical integrity of our judging matrices, but more importantly, we stand behind the humans making this transformation possible on the ground.” — Gareth Presch & James Sanderson, Global Social Prescribing Alliance
To all our winners and applicants—thank you for your tireless advocacy, your creativity, and your unwavering commitment to health equity. You are building healthier, more resilient communities for us all.
Interested in making a global impact? Nominations for the 2026 Global Social Prescribing Impact Awards are officially OPEN! Read our full announcement blog and find out how to enter or become a strategic sponsor by emailing gareth@whis.world.