Winners of the NAFIS Awards 2026 announced

Each year the NAFIS Awards celebrate best practice and recognise the important work of Family Information Services.

Family Information Services are at the heart of local communities, providing essential guidance to parents on childcare and other services. 

The winners of the 2026 NAFIS Awards were announced on Wednesday 11 November 2026 during the annual NAFIS conference, bringing together local authority colleagues from across England.

The National Association of Family Information Services (NAFIS) is a national membership organisation supporting local authorities to deliver high quality information and advice to families.

This year’s NAFIS awards were judged and presented by Chantelle Malcolm, Sunia Saeed and Dan Suy – Parent Champion volunteers with a wealth of experience and insight into how families seek information and support in their local areas.

2026 Winner of the NAFIS Award for Best Community Engagement : Warwickshire 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 work such as events, outreach or marketing.  

This award recognised how Warwickshire Family Information Service doesn’t simply wait for families to come to them, but actively goes out into the heart of its community, building trusted relationships and ensuring support reaches families. 

The winner demonstrated an outstanding commitment to engaging families wherever they are. Over the past year, the Warwickshire FIS team has attended an incredible 419 community events, working alongside children’s centres, schools, libraries, food banks, job centres, parent groups and many other local partners. Through this extensive outreach, they have connected directly with thousands of families – spoken with more than 6,000 parents and carers, and provided ongoing one-to-one support to over 800 families. 

What makes Warwickshire’s approach particularly impressive is the way they work closely with parents, community leaders and local organisations to ensure that the voices and experiences of families genuinely shape the services they deliver. 

Their innovative use of digital engagement has also expanded their reach, with a social media community of more than 7,000 followers and a newsletter reaching over 15,000 subscribers. Whether online or in person, they are committed to making information accessible, relevant and easy for families to find. 

The judges were especially impressed by Warwickshire’s targeted Free School Meals campaign and the way they have worked with their Best Start Family Hub. The judges thought their website and the way they are sharing information with families was just brilliant! 

2026 Winner of the NAFIS Award for Best Family Information Service Directory: Suffolk County Council Family Information Service

This award recognises the important work that goes into providing an accessible, welcoming, and user-friendly FIS directory, focusing 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 is easy it is for parents to find out about the childcare available in their area
• How well the directory provides information about early education and help with childcare costs 

This year’s winner, Suffolk Family Information Service, demonstrated an outstanding commitment to helping families, children, young people and professionals access the information they need. 

Through their online directory, they have created a comprehensive and accessible one-stop resource for their community – bringing together information on childcare, family support, health and wellbeing services, community groups, schools, activities and much more. 

What particularly impressed the judges was the depth and quality of information available to families. Their dedicated childcare directory helps parents quickly find the right provision for their child, with search tools covering everything from location and vacancies to funded childcare and SEND provision. 

For example, the directory includes a table of costs for each provider and this helps families see easily what they will have to pay including anything extra, while dedicated SEND sections ensure that families can find information about accessibility and specialist support. All of these features help families compare settings and make informed choices. 

Perhaps most telling of all were the comments from Suffolk’s directory users, who described the service as “easy to search for information”, “a valuable resource”, and as having “all information in one place.” 

This FIS team’s work embodies their simple but powerful belief that: “An informed community is a strong community.” 

2026 Winner of the NAFIS Award for Best Local Offer Directory: Reading Borough Council Family Information Service

This category celebrates the incredible effort that goes into setting up a successful Local Offer which meets the needs of families of children with 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 team at Reading Family Information Service has won this award category for the second year running and continues to lead the way in developing a SEND Local Offer that is not only comprehensive and accessible, but genuinely co-produced with the people it serves. 

At the heart of everything they do are the principles of communication, collaboration, and co-production. Working alongside parents, carers, young people, schools, health services and community partners, they have built a service that families trust and rely on. 

What makes this Local Offer particularly special is that it is far more than a website. It is a fully integrated service offering information, advice and guidance through dedicated telephone support, email, social media, outreach events, newsletters, and targeted engagement across the community. In the last year alone, they have delivered 34 outreach sessions and events, taking support directly into communities and ensuring families can access help where and when they need it most. 

The judges noted how helpful it was to have a filter for age range when they searched the online Local Offer Directory and were impressed at how feedback was gathered regularly from the local young people’s forum (Special United), from professionals’ and from parents’ to bring about ongoing improvements to the directory. 

The Reading FIS team’s work has been recognised not only locally but nationally, with many other local authorities looking to them as an example of best practice and seeking guidance from them on developing their own Local Offers. 

This is a FIS team that truly embodies the spirit of partnership and puts children, young people, and families at the centre of everything they do. 

Congratulations to all this year’s winners!