The community agent for Chirk has praised colleagues across the region after they won a collective award for their work during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Yvie Burnett is part of the community agent team for Wrexham county, which has found new ways of working in her role during the crisis over the past few months.

She and her colleagues have been recognised for their efforts with an award from the Association of Voluntary Organisations in Wrexham (AVOW).

The work they have done, and continue to do, has been recognised with AVOW’s volunteer award.

Yvie praised the team and is happy their collective efforts have been appreciated.

She said: “The community agents won the award as a team for the support provided during Covid.

“I think it’s fabulous that the service all of the agents have provided has been given a higher profile.

“We’ve been restricted with what we can do during lockdown, so things have been slightly different.

“It has been difficult not being able to make visits in person and having to find alternatives to events, but we’ve certainly taken advantage of technology with Zoom calls, iPads and other things to help us.”

As part of their roles, the community agents delivered personal protective equipment (PPE), food parcels, helped to deliver prescriptions and been there to help vulnerable members of the community.

“We’re just starting to get out and about in the community again which is great,” Yvie added.

“Being able to help people during this time has been brilliant, and to make a little bit of a difference in what has been a difficult situation for a lot of people – many of whom were already isolated before the measures came in.

“At the start, people were really panicking about how they were going to get food and go shopping, how they were going to get medication, could they see the doctor or attend their hospital appointments.

“All of these questions were asked at the start, so it was a learning curve for everyone.

“You have to look for positives in every situation, and it has been nice to see individual members of the community and the local shops and services adapting and coming together, especially when, at times, government help might not have necessarily been available.”

The clerk for Chirk Town Council, Karen Brown, congratulated Yvie and her colleagues on the award.

She said: “Chirk Town Council congratulates all the Community Agents in Wrexham, and especially Yvie, for her dedicated work in the community of Chirk during lockdown.”