Hard-working staff in the frontline Family Information Services of Cornwall County Council, Reading Borough Council and Suffolk County Council are celebrating today, after winning the prestigious NAFIS Awards 2025.
The annual NAFIS Awards, hosted by charity Coram Family and Childcare, recognise the excellent work of Family Information Services around the country and celebrate their remarkable contributions to local communities. NAFIS members can nominate Family Information Services that are particularly impressive in one of the award categories, and a Family Information Service can be nominated for more than one category of award.
Nominations were received in four categories of awards. The standard was high, and selecting the winners was no easy task for the panel of judges.
The winners of this year’s Awards were announced today at the NAFIS Awards 2025 ceremony online.
The NAFIS Award 2025 for best promotion of the expanded childcare entitlements has been won by Cornwall County Council Family Information Service.
This award recognises teams that have effectively promoted the expansion of childcare entitlements for working families alongside promotion of the whole range of funded entitlements, focusing on:
Helping working parents understand the expansion of funded entitlements; reaching families least likely to take-up early education, particularly families experiencing disadvantage; effective outreach; online engagement and innovative use of social media; addressing the local barriers to take-up of funded early education; using innovative promotion strategies and materials; and working to ensure sufficiency is being met for all the childcare funded offers.
The judges noted that Cornwall Family Information Service (FIS) team have taken a proactive, inclusive, and innovative approach to promoting the expanded childcare entitlements for working families, and worked tirelessly to ensure families can access the support they need.
Speaking today after receiving the award, Tiffany Kerr-Knight of Cornwall Family Information Service said: “We are really honoured! We’ve expanded our work in the community, especially through our Parent Champions scheme, so it is great for the team to be recognised with this Award”.
Two of the NAFIS Awards 2025 were won by Reading Borough Council Family Information Service, Best Local Offer Directory and Best FIS Directory.
The Best Local Offer award celebrates the incredible effort that goes into setting up a successful Local Offer which meets the needs of families of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The award focusses on how parents, carers and young people co-produced the Local Offer directory; ways that the Local Offer is easy to navigate online; ways that the Local Offer is promoted, including with other services; how the Local Offer is integrated with other teams and services.
The judges noted that in the last year this service has provided brokerage support to 1,338 families who contacted the SEND Local Offer, and has taken the SEND Local Offer into the wider community, by delivering more than 20 outreach events this year.
The Best Family Information Service Directory award recognises the important work that goes into providing an accessible, welcoming, and user-friendly FIS directory. It focusses on how parents, carers and young people have been involved in the design of the directory; ways that the directory is easy to navigate online; ways that the directory is promoted; how easy it is for parents to find out about the childcare available in their area; and how well the directory provides information about free early education.
The judges noted that this FIS directory platform was created with parent carers to avoid jargon, use easy to understand language and make sure it was easy to navigate. This directory has robust advice and guidance pages that are written by the experts in that field and regularly updated. The FIS Childcare page QR code is in the red baby books, so parents can quickly go straight to the page. Advice and guidance pages are linked with the childcare search lists, and parent carers can create their own shortlist of childcare settings.
On receiving these two awards today, Maryam Makki of Reading Borough Council said: “Thank you to my whole Family Information Service team and to the parent carers who work closely with us, they have been great. Thanks also to the voluntary and community organisations in Reading who are amazing in supporting local people in our community. We’ll keep working hard together as long as local parents need us”.
The NAFIS Award 2025 for Best Community Engagement has been won by Suffolk County Council Family Information Service.
This award celebrates Family Information Services that are excellent in connecting with local families and community partners, focusing on partnerships and collaboration with local services and other organisations; understanding the needs of their local community; use of social media and digital tools for community engagement; other engagement through relevant events, or marketing.
The judges noted that this Family Information Service and local authority stands out for its community engagement, acting as a lifeline for local families. Their accessible, online hub connects local people with over 7,000 local services, giving access to childcare, health, financial and wellbeing support, and community activities – breaking down barriers to inclusion
Receiving the award today, Anita Abram of Suffolk Family Information Service said: “Firstly, a big thank you to colleagues in our Family Information Service and our public health and community teams. This has been a collaboration over 20 years, pulling together to make a difference for families in Suffolk. We are very pleased to receive this award. Thank you”.