Members efforts in promoting the battle against child sexual exploitation have been recognised by a national organisation.

The Chartered Institute of Public Relations have shortlisted NWG Network for their Midlands PRide awards, which showcase excellence in communications, after a huge push to highlight Child Sexual Exploitation issues.

Due to the engagement of members in the run up to the CSE Awareness Day NWG were able to increase social media engagement to 5.5million from 3.9million a huge growth of 1.6million for the one-day event.

A year-long campaign enabled the NWG to get best possible impact from existing opportunities, such as the biggest national gathering of professionals in the UK in Nottingham. The NWG were also asked to advise on the making of the BBC Drama Three Girls, which received superb reviews and reached millions more.

The NWG staff worked with Midlands PR agency BakerBaird Communications to create a series of features, articles and content. The end results included two appearances on Radio4 Woman’s Hour and three slots on BBC5Live, as well as features in The Times Online, the Sun and the Sunday Mirror, with media coverage in regional and local newspapers all across the UK.

This coverage reached nearly 31million of the UK’s adults.

The NWG formally started in its present format in 2011 with an email list of 256 people and now boasts a professional membership of over 14,500 dissemination points through over 300 organisations, it has just 15 staff based in Derby, supporting more than 20,000 professionals over the past two years to improve responses to children across the UK.

CSE Response Unit leader Phil Ashford said: “It’s great to be shortlisted for an award and really important we do everything we can to support and help professionals – spreading the word is all part of the work. We have great supporters and we would like to see more and more people accessing our resources, working together collaboratively and helping combat child sexual exploitation.”

Winners for the CIPR Midlands PRide Awards will be announced in Birmingham on 26 October.