Registered office: Home-Start UK
2 Salisbury Road, Leicester, LEI 7QR Tel: 0116 233 9955 Fax: 0116 233 0232
Home-Start Deveron , 5 - 7 Strait Path, Banff, AB45 1AD
Registered Company No: SC280867 Registered Charity No: SC026191 Tel: 01261 819964
Home-Start is a national charity that is working with thousands of families in hundreds of communities across the UK.
Home-Start is invaluable both to myself, as a professional, and to the women I work with. Having the help of a volunteer or participating in the social support Home-Start offers aids recovery from post natal illness, value Home-Start and feel honoured to be asked to talk to the new volunteers about post natal illness, my role, treatment and resources. I have referred many people to Home-Start and all of them have had positive experiences and invaluable support.
A nurse working with women experiencing pre natal and post natal illness.
Who can refer families to Home-Start?
The main referrers to Home-Start are health visitors and professionals in the social care and child care sectors. Others include GP's and those working in the fields of mental health, education, early years and probation. Around a quarter of families self refer.
What Home-Start achieves
Every year we talk to families, volunteers and professionals about the effect of Home-Start support. Through this vital monitoring and evaluation of our service we know that by supporting parents, Home-Start makes a positive contribution to family life and to the outcomes for children.
Home-Start can:
- Reduce family isolation and increase
social support networks. - Strengthen parent/child relationships.
- Improve parents' physical health and
emotional well being. - Help parents to appreciate the joys of
parenting and improve parenting skills. - Improve the home environment.
- Improve children's health, well being and development.
- Improve access to health and
community services.
We also know that our success in connecting with families that other services have difficulty reaching or engaging with is valued by professionals.
Research shows:
- Home-Start is effective in connecting
with, and remaining with, socially
excluded families. - Home-Start's informal approach is
welcomed by parents who are reluctant
or unable to take up other support
services. - Home-Start volunteers act as a bridge
between families and the social and
economic benefits and services in their
community that they may otherwise
miss out on.
Home-Start works with socially excluded
families to help empower them to access training
and participate in community activities.
We help families with young children through a combination of home visiting support, group support and social activities. Home visiting by volunteers accounts for at least 60% of our service.
Home-Start aims to give support to families who may be struggling to cope with a variety of challenges, including post-natal illness, disability, isolation, the demands of parenting young children, bereavement and multiple births: helping prevent these difficulties from escalating into crises, and crises from developing into family breakdown.
In any local community Home-Start will be one of several organisations working with families and we value our relationships with other agencies. Since Home-Start is a voluntary organisation it can offer a flexible approach to individual families.
Home-Start support is not a substitute for professional services but complementary to them, and the best results are achieved through an active partnership between professionals and Home-Start.
Our expertise, knowledge and UK-wide network of staff and volunteers can be a valuable resource for professionals.