Working full-time and completing a three-year degree in your own time – while still balancing family life - is an amazing accomplishment for anyone.

To also gain first-class honours and a prestigious award for being the highest-performing student in Wales is an outstanding achievement.

And 38-year-old Sarah Hanley of Haverfordwest, a social worker for Pembrokeshire County Council, has done just that.

Sarah was recently awarded the Andrew Cornwell Memorial Prize (Wales) 2015 from the Open University for receiving the highest results of her graduate cohort in the BA First Class Honours degree in Social Work.

As a trainee social worker, she applied for and received an annual bursary from Pembrokeshire County Council in 2012 to enable her to study for the degree.

Sarah says without that financial backing and the support of her colleagues, she wouldn’t have been able to do it.

?“I’m just very grateful that Pembrokeshire County Council invest in their staff and give them the opportunity to progress in their career,” she said. “It was the only way I could have studied for a professional qualification without stopping work – which wasn’t possible.”

Jonathan Griffiths, the County Council’s new Director of Social Services and Leisure, said: “This is a fantastic achievement for Sarah on a personal level and demonstrates a real commitment to achieving this qualification. The Open University also recognises this excellent achievement by making this award.

“I can also say that Pembrokeshire County Council is very proud of this level of attainment. To be recognised nationally in this way must be a source of great joy to Sarah and her family, making all the effort worthwhile.”

Before becoming a trainee social worker, Sarah worked for five years as an assessment co-ordinator in the Council’s joint discharge team based at Withybush Hospital. Prior to that, she had various roles within health care and health promotion.

The mother-of-two said the opportunity to study for a degree presented itself at a good time for her and she grabbed it with both hands.

“I had found a profession I felt passionate about, and with the children getting a bit older, I wanted to do something for myself. I used to start working at nine o’clock and carry on late into the evening, and every weekend. You have to put your life on hold. I missed a lot of telly!

“But I was motivated, and my mindset was to do it properly, or don’t do it at all. And the girls were studying for GCSEs and A-levels at the time, so we just became a studying household.”

?She added: “It was completely worth it. Even though it was hard, I loved it.”

As part of the degree, Sarah spent six months with Pembrokeshire County Council’s social services family intervention team, and six months with the mental health team. Her role now is Continuing Health Co-ordinator specialising in adult care, which includes a substantial amount of work with dementia patients and more complex cases.

“It’s a hugely rewarding career,” she said. “You work with people when they are at their most vulnerable, when they are going through traumatic experiences. If you can alleviate that and make it easier for them, it’s very rewarding.

“The most important thing is to be very open-minded, very non-judgemental - and honest. People have such varied lives and society is changing so much.”

Sarah said her family had been incredibly supportive while she was studying and are very proud of her achievement.

And she now hopes her experience might encourage other young parents to be positive about what the future might hold in terms of their career.

“I didn’t do well in school, and I had my eldest daughter at the age of 19,” she said. “But you should never write somebody off because they are a young parent. Good things can happen to you.”