Jack Blaik, a recently retired senior social worker with EHSCP, has scooped yet another award – Pride of Scotland Lifetime Achievement 2026.
Jack and his late wife Nancy helped found Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS) which have been supporting seriously ill kids and their families for 30 years.
Jack and Nancy’s son Daniel was the driving force behind their efforts to create a children’s hospice in Scotland. Daniel was left profoundly disabled from a metabolic trauma caused by the rare degenerative condition Leigh’s Encephalopathy. Due to the lack of hospice care in Scotland at the time, they had to take Daniel, who later passed away in 2009, to Martin House Children’s Hospice in Yorkshire, England.
In November 1991, a number of parents and professionals came together calling for a children’s hospice in Scotland. In 1992, this informal group became the charity CHAS and set a fundraising target of £10 million. Together, the group worked hard to secure the funds needed to build the very first children’s hospice in Scotland, Rachel House, in Kinross, which opened its doors to children and families in 1996. In 2005 Scotland’s second hospice Robin House in Balloch, Dunbartonshire, opened its doors. CHAS is presently fundraising to renovate Rachel House. You can donate to the causes on the CHAS website.
Jack and Nancy (MBE), who was registered blind and affected dementia in later life, said they were proud that their work means nobody has to face the death of their child alone. Nancy passed away in May last year, Jack has continued their mission and was made an OBE just before Nancy’s death.
Jack worked in social work in Edinburgh for 40 years, working for City of Edinburgh Council, The Scottish Government and retired from Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership earlier this year.
Jack said oif winning the Pride of Scotland award: “The real pride is in the many thousands who made Rachel House possible in the beginning, and now in those who sustain it with their time and commitment. Rachel House is, in a sense, a pride of Scotland, having been built out of nothing by the generosity of those who live here.
“Each day I think of my wee Daniel, and of his mother Nancy. They are no longer with me, but I feel their presence strongly in the garden at Rachel House. If there is any pride, it is there and in all those who keep Rachel alive as somewhere for children and their families to live their fullest lives.”