Children`s Information Services (CIS)

CIS’s are well positioned to meet the requirements, which include extending the existing duty to ensure parents and prospective parents can access the full range of information they may need for their children right up to their 20th birthday. Regionally, some CIS’s have already been re-positioned, and many are taking on new areas of work, such as maintaining sports and youth related information databases.

Opportunity Links support the CIS regional network. This group provide peer support and develop seminars on issues of relevance to CIS’s. Recently these have included Extended Services and Childcare sufficiency. A paper called ‘How prepared are Authorities to meet the Information Duty?’ (Nov 2006) has been written by Opportunity Links – see internet link.

In East Riding the FISH (Family Information Service) is seen as the operational lead in information, advice and guidance, and has a clear role in providing a wide range of information in a variety of settings. Work of FISH currently includes, linking with children's centres, developing a relationship with extended services and working in partnership with local authority call centres.

Work is currently underway to explore supporting Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) requests from less confident parents and those who are rurally isolated.