She takes up the post on 4 June after 36 years in teaching - the last ten as head of the Claremont Primary School, which has been at the forefront of integrating services for children and families.
Ms Wills, a former chair of Early Education, said one of her tasks would be to write a parenting strategy and to 'bring together the work beginning to develop in children's centres'. She added, 'What we are hoping to do is involve all the agencies in this, including health, social services, education and the voluntary sector and do it in such a way that we draw everything together and get some kind of joined-up overview.'
She emphasised that health visitors and social services, through family centres, already provided some 'really good courses for parents', helping to raise their self-esteem and confidence.
She said she was heartened by the spate of recent documents from the DfES that stressed the need to take into account local contexts and were not insisting on set formulas to help parents.
'There is a glimmer of hope here of a more bottom-up approach, rather than top down. I am looking forward to working with parents and making them understand that we don't have all the answers, we are not experts, but we can help and they can probably help each other.'
Ms Wills said her desire to 'pull the successful elements together and make some sort of coherent whole' would involve 'listening and learning' from initiatives such as Home Start, which does 'a huge amount of good work'.
Sue Harrison, assistant director for Learning and Achievement at Blackpool council, said, 'We have created this post because working with parents is one of the most effective ways in which we can support children and overcome barriers to learning. They learn best when parents are involved.'