Childcare Champions for work

Six inspirational childcare campaigners were named Childcare Champions for work in their local community at the first-ever awards reception hosted by chancellor of the exchequer Gordon Brown at 11 Downing Street last week during National Childcare Week. The winners were Sophie Ugle, whose work for childcare for disabled children means that a specialist holiday playscheme will run in Kingston for the first time this summer; parents Joanne Rankin, Victoria Daley and Marie Hayward, who started Bright Sparks in Andover, Hampshire, to set up inclusive playschemes for children with ADHD; Derek Hays from Hartlepool, who set up a fathers' group and is a member of the Sure Start central partnership board; Anne Belcher and John Falla from Bexhill, Surrey, nominated by their local Sure Start for developing a Neighbourhood Nursery; Claire Frost from the London borough of Haringey, who started the co-operative nursery Wigwam; and Doreen Kett from Bishop Auckland for promoting childcare in Sure Start Wear Valley. The awards were organised by the Daycare Trust in memory of former trustee Bernard Misrahi, in association with Care Aware and the Childcare Innovations Partnership.