Parent Champions Awards 2025

The winners of Coram Family and Childcare’s Parent Champions Awards 2025 have been announced today by Dr Carol Homden CBE, CEO of Coram.  

The annual Parent Champions Awards recognise and celebrate the work of Parent Champions volunteers and coordinators. Coram Family and Childcare’s 41 Parent Champion schemes reach almost 50,000 families a year (2023/24). Thanks to the amazing work of more than 350 Parent Champions volunteers, parents and carers are supported by their peers in their own communities.

There are five categories of award:

The Parent Champions Coordinator of the Year Award 2025 joint winners are Leila Dantes-Michael from Lewisham, and Jasmine Wilson-Daze from Norfolk.

This award recognises the Parent Champions Coordinator who has demonstrated outstanding levels of dedication, creativity, and boldness in bringing communities together - and has worked hard to support and encourage Parent Champions in their roles as a volunteers as well as in their personal development.

Leila Dantes-Michael from Lewisham is described by the volunteers who work with her as ‘courageous and dedicated’. She organises the Parent Champions team with great care, staying in regular contact to offer support. She is actively present during outreach sessions, helping Parent Champions and giving them confidence and guidance. One of the volunteers who nominated Leila said:  “Leila is a role model. She really inspired me with her way of teaching.”

Jasmine Wilson-Daze from Norfolk has worked with over 60 volunteers this year. She created a comprehensive induction training package to support Parent Champions volunteers in their roles with families in the community. She thinks strategically and her flexible approach ensures that the programme works for the volunteers.  Her colleagues say “Jasmine’s passion and dedication have been key to the programme's success”. 

The Parent Champions Biggest Personal Development Award 2025 winner is Becky Harris from Wrexham. This award recognises the Parent Champions volunteer who has made significant positive developments to impact their own life.

Becky has played an active role in supporting parents in the local area, using her own experience as a parent to offer advice around caring for children with additional needs accessing services. Becky has grown hugely in confidence. A local family support team colleague says: “When I think of Becky, I think, super mum, parent champion, a listener and just an all-round fabulous person”.

The Parent Champions Best Newcomer Award 2025 winner is Sarah Sumner from Blackburn with Darwen. This award recognises new Parent Champions volunteers who have made significant progress or impact since joining the scheme.

Colleagues say that from the moment Sarah joined the scheme, she hit the ground running and quickly began connecting with local families who needed support. Sarah has actively sought out opportunities to learn and grow within her role, with mentorship from more experienced volunteers.

The Parent Champions Biggest Impact Award 2025 winner is Diane Price from Blackburn with Darwen. This award recognises the Parent Champions volunteer who has demonstrated outstanding levels of dedication, enthusiasm and team work.

Diane has had an extraordinary impact on her local SEND community over the last year. She has consistently gone above and beyond in her role, not only through tireless efforts in reaching out to isolated parents but also by developing innovative strategies that have allowed her scheme to connect with even the most isolated families. Diane recognised that many SEND parents in the community felt disconnected from local services and in response, she created a simple yet highly effective ‘Lets Talk’ session that allowed parents to meet and share experiences.

The Parent Champions Scheme of the Year Award 2025 winner 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 12 SEND parents and 27 languages spoken.

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%. The scheme focuses on partnership work, and many partners contributed to their 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”.

For more information about Parent Champions visit: https://www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/parent-champions-national-network