“It takes a village”

How Parent Champions in Islington have reached families across the community.

The annual Parent Champions Awards recognise and celebrate the work of Parent Champions volunteers and coordinators.

The winner of Parent Champions Scheme of the Year Award 2025 is Parent Champions Islington.

This award celebrates the incredible achievement of a whole Parent Champions team.

Parent Champions Islington focuses on supporting residents with children under five, sharing key messages around health, early education and home learning as well as helping shape future services. Since it launched in January 2018, the scheme has recruited and trained over 119 parent volunteers. This includes 22 parents of children with SEND, and 39 different languages spoken. There are currently 56 parent champions still active.

Parent Champions in Islington have a measurable impact on the take-up of local services with take-up of parenting courses up 60% and take-up of free early education for 2-year-olds increasing from 64% to 77%. In the last 7 years they have had 119 volunteers and nearly 140,000 contacts with parents across a wide range of communities. The scheme puts the needs of volunteers at its heart, ensuring that it recruits from as wide a community as possible.

As well as outreach work with families, Parent Champions are included in health commissioning panels, involved in multi-agency networking meetings, and contribute to communications with parents including launching a new e-newsletter with a focus on home learning: ‘Bright Start Bright Ideas’.  

Parent Champions Islington is run by Coordinator Selda Aygun, who has worked with passion, upskilling and empowering parents over the past 18 years, seeing the changes which create a better start for children.

On receiving the Award Selda said:

“I am bursting with pride and joy! I am so proud to have set up and to be running such a successful Parent Champion scheme within Bright Start Islington that is deemed the best in the UK. Thank you for Coram’s input and continued support, and to all my colleagues as it’s great to be working with the best colleagues anyone could ever wish for. And a very special thank you to our fantastic Bright Start Islington Parent Champion volunteers who are doing an amazing job of sharing information and increasing take up of Early Year’s services, making a huge impact on our communities living in Islington.”

Parent Champions Islington focuses on partnership work, and many partners contributed to the nomination for this award.

The Islington Family Hubs team said:

“Parent Champions have contributed enormously to the development of Family Hubs in our area to ensure the hubs meet the needs of local families and their children. They have helped to design promotional materials, launch events and wider community engagement activities. They have also shared their views and experiences with the national programme teams from DfE and DHSC which was very much appreciated.”

And their Senior Public Health Strategist adds: “We know that parent-to-parent word of mouth messaging can be very powerful. The scheme has been a hugely effective way to spread awareness of health messaging and activities and services”.

An Area SENCO says “I have collaborated with Parent Champions whose children have SEND. The scheme has been shaped by their voices as their lived experiences have directly influenced the way services are delivered across the area. This collaboration ensures that services are not only professional but also truly relevant and responsive to the needs of families. The scheme stands out because it goes beyond consultation, it builds true partnerships with parents to improve outcomes for children and families.” 

One of the male Parent Champions volunteers secured funding from the council to organise an event for fathers and male carers with a particular focus on Black male carers. He organised the screening of a film centred around masculinity and fatherhood, and facilitated signposting, networking and a panel discussion of guest speakers. The event received very positive feedback as a space to connect with other Dads. 

Another of Islington’s Parent Champions volunteers sums up how it feels to be part of this network:

“Being part of the local Parent Champions network has allowed me to build connections in my community and given me confidence to be the best parent I can be with the knowledge of resources to support my family and signpost others. I love that I feel connected to my community when I walk down the street or through the park and it’s nearly impossible to not run into someone I’ve met through the program. It makes me feel connected and grounded and rooted for myself and my family and as someone who has no family in this country other than my husband and children - the phrase “it takes a village” has come to life for me and I feel like I found “my village” through these amazing people and resources and community.”