When parents can't cope children suffer, the impact of which can last a lifetime.
For the last 25 years, local Home-Start volunteers have been offering emotional and practical support to Birmingham parents and their children, in local communities right across the city.
Why? Because parenting can be hard for so many reasons. From dealing with poverty and isolation to poor mental health and relationship breakdowns. All these issues can affect a parent's ability to cope, and in turn, this can impact on their children.
And this is where Home-Start steps in...
Our volunteers, who have parenting experience, are trained before being matched to a local family. For just a couple of hours each week, volunteers visits families in their own homes- providing a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on and a practical pair of hands. Each family's circumstances are different, there is no such thing as a typical family or volunteer. But each volunteer will offer confidential and non judgemental support, walking alongside a family until they are ready to go it alone.
The impact that Home-Start volunteers have on parents and their children is huge. Our volunteers are ordinary people making an extraordinary difference. One family supported by Home-Start said: "My volunteer was the light at the end of my very dark tunnel. She's the reason I now get up in the morning, she's the reason I smile again. Thanks to her, my children now have a much happier mum."
Our volunteers come from all walks of life and all backgrounds. This means that we can draw on a range of life experiences to match our volunteers to families who would benefit from their help and support the most.
Our volunteers offer a mixture of practical and emotional, non-judgmental support, for however long a family needs them, taking small steps with each family, that make a big difference.
Our volunteers also empower parents to make changes, to forge links in their local community and access specialist services if needed. They help to build confidence and resilience with families who may feel isolated, or who have no one else to turn to for support.
All our volunteers receive training and ongoing support and supervision so that we know that they are providing the best possible support to families that they can.
The core support of Home-Start is home-visiting, however, some Home-Starts also run family support groups, stay and play sessions and much more.
