Informed Families  (IF)  – Enfield's Family Information Service, aims to provide information on quality childcare and support for parents of children and young people up to age 20, in order that they can make informed choices. We want to ensure that you get the information, advice and guidance you need, when and where you need it.

What we do

• operate a free, confidential and impartial helpline for 40 hours a week* so that you can request information about all kinds of childcare (including home-based childcare and early years providers on Ofsted's voluntary register)
• give you accurate and easy-to-understand advice, both verbally and on factsheets, about help with the costs of this childcare (including the free entitlement to twelve and a half hours of nursery education a week)
• provide extra support for Enfield families that have struggled to find childcare** by putting you in touch with our Childcare Brokerage officer
• empower parents of children with disabilities and special educational needs by linking you with our Disabilities and Inclusion officer
• respond to your information requests within 24 hours each working week. We can do this via post or email.

*Hours of opening are shown to the right. We reserve the right to alter these times or close the Helpline at short notice, for service development reasons. We will always tell you the reason for such changes on our out-of-hours message.

**Specific criteria apply. Please see IF's Childcare Brokerage policy for more details.

Information we provide

• new lists of childminders and day care providers every Monday afternoon (bank holidays excluded)
• lists of out of school providers and parent and toddler groups on the first Monday afternoon of each month.
• updated day care vacancies at the beginning of each term, and  childminder vacancies each week
• information request cards at public information points for you to request exactly what you need
• local services and organisations that can provide support to you in your area.
• Contact us if you would like to know more about Information for Enfield childcare providers or prospective providers.

• on the internet, at www.childcarelink.gov.uk and on these web pages
• on factsheets about choosing quality childcare, help with the costs of childcare and other sources of support
• on information leaflets in your local area, for example at your library, health centre or community centre
• through other agencies and support workers, including First Stop information centres and welfare rights officers.

CACEY and IF – How we work

IF is the front-line service for Community Access, Childcare and Early Years (CACEY), which is a council service within the Education, Children’s Service and Leisure department, working to provide services with and for children, professionals and partners. Please contact us if you would like to understand any of the information on this website:

• Typetalk
• Enlargement
• Three-way telephone interpretation
• Face-to-face interpretation

For details of our values and policies please see our Vision Statement. To view our policies in full please Click Here.

Involving you

IF regularly reviews its service delivery to make sure we are meeting local quality standards laid out in Enfield Council’s Customer Service Policy and national quality indicators set out in the matrix Standard.

However, your feedback is essential to the work we do, so please let us know if you have any comments and suggestions. If you feel that we have done a good job, please let us know via the above address / telephone number.

Alternatively, if you feel that our service has not met these standards, you can complain through our ‘Have Your Say policy’