"These awards don't belong to one person. They belong to every young person who walked through our doors carrying a label, and walked out carrying belief in themselves" - Helen Kenworthy

A Warwick-based woman, founder of Education Selection Box and The RYTC, and co-founder of Give Get Go Education, has won three awards after 30 years in the creative industries without putting her name up for a single award.

Helen Kenworthy has shared a heartfelt thank you to the young people who inspire her and her work each day, after winning two Silver awards and a rare Special Recognition Award at the Best Businesswomen Awards 2026.

Here is her account of the evening and what recognition of not only her work, but the work of The RYTC means for the local community.

Silver, Silver and a Special Recognition: My Night at the Best Businesswomen Awards 2026

For most of my thirty years working across the creative industries, business, and education, I didn't enter a single award. I was far too busy, and if I'm truthful, it never felt like the point. The point was always the child in front of me: the one who had stopped believing school was a place for them, and the family quietly wondering whether anyone was going to help.

What changed my mind was being named Regional Youth Arts Champion by the English National Youth Arts Network, because I never put myself forward for it. One of my own students did. That was the day I understood that recognition isn't really about me. It's about young people who want the world to know that something changed for them.

A night to remember

It is with enormous pride that I can share that I came home from the Best Businesswomen Awards 2026 with not one award, but three.

From hundreds of entries, just 107 women were selected as finalists this year. I was honoured to be named a Silver Winner in two categories: Best Businesswoman Working with Children & Families, where I also took Silver last year, and Charity Champion.

Then came the moment I truly wasn't expecting. Out of all 107 finalists, only a handful of women were selected to receive a Special Recognition Award, and I was one of them. The organisers describe it as an award that recognises dedication to your business, your clients and your industry.

For me, it recognises something even bigger: every child, parent and practitioner who has been part of this journey.

Why this one means so much

Special Recognition isn't something you can enter. It's chosen. And for an organisation built around children who are so often overlooked, being seen in that way means more than I can easily put into words.

Our RYTC and Education Selection Box Partnership works with the young people I call the Brilliantly Underestimated: children with SEND, anxious learners, home-educated young people, and anyone mainstream education has quietly stopped fighting for. Every time this work is recognised, more families discover there is a different way, and more of those children get found.

Where it all began

There was never a business plan. No boardroom, no spreadsheet, no five-year strategy. There was a child, sitting in my garden, writing a book.

That child had been told, by a school, a system and a report, that they didn't fit. Too disruptive for mainstream. Too far behind on paper. So we put the labels to one side, and we wrote. By the end, that child was a published author, with a real book and their name on the cover. No one could argue with it, and no one could ever take it away.

That afternoon became Of Course You Can!™, my Creative Pathway Methodology, and the foundation of everything we now do across Warwickshire.

Trust before everything

Thirty years have taught me one truth above all others: a child cannot learn until they feel safe.

One student spent an entire year doing nothing more than weekly walks with my Border Collie, who has since qualified as a therapy dog, before she trusted me enough to pick up a camera. There's no box for that on a lesson plan, but it was the most important year of her education.

Another young girl came to us suffering regular stress migraines, always on school days. She flexi-schooled with us at The RYTC for three months, writing and creating her own short film. When the project ended, she felt differently about herself. She returned to school full time, and the migraines stopped.

That isn't magic. It's what happens when you get the environment right. In our world, a classroom can be anywhere: a forest, a kitchen table, a film set made of cardboard boxes, or a walk with a dog who doesn't care in the slightest what your test scores were.

A year to remember

2026 has been the most remarkable year in our history. Alongside the Best Businesswomen Awards, our partnership was named Prestige Awards SEND Provider of the Year 2026 and won the SME Awards' Best Inclusive Creative Learning Partnership of the Year for Warwickshire. I was also invited to sponsor the Strategic Business Leader award at the Class Business Awards 2026.

We launched the Creative Clubs Collection, bringing performing arts, games and circus skills to children who learn best through play and performance. And we joined forces with Who's Shoes, the multi-award-winning engagement initiative now active in over 100 NHS trusts, to build a new Family Support Hub so that no Warwickshire parent has to navigate the system alone.

Thank you

To every student, family, tutor, practitioner and volunteer who has stood beside us: these awards are yours. Thank you to the Best Businesswomen Awards for seeing what we do, and to everyone who trusted us when trust felt in short supply.

The question I ask myself every day is a simple one: what happens to the child everyone else has already written off? My answer, and our whole team's answer, will always be the same.

Of course you can.

To find out more about our work or how we could support your child, school, or organisation, I would love to hear from you. Get in touch via helenkenworthy.com.

The RYTC sponsors Warwick Nub News.