Home-Start Walsall
Our objectives
Home-Start UK charity (HSUK) is a leading provider of volunteer support for families, delivering highly successful and quantifiable outcomes for over 30,000 families and 60,000 children a year through a 250-strong federated network of independent Home-Start charities.
Over the past 22 years, Home-Start Walsall has recruited and trained over 350 volunteers to support more than 2000 families facing multiple and complex needs in our community.
Home-Start’s research shows that children who are raised in a stable, loving family environment are more likely to have a positive and healthy future.
Our volunteers work alongside families in the home to build the skills, confidence and resilience needed to cope with the challenges they face.
In addition to home visits, Home-Start Walsall deliver a range of community-based initiatives to support the needs of families in Walsall.
Home-Start Walsall is based on a simple concept, that if parents get support and friendship from a volunteer or support group, at the right time, they will learn to cope with many of life's difficulties. The relationship of trust and friendship, built provides the foundation for parents to build a better future for their families.
Although we follow the standards and methods of practice set out by Home-Start UK, we are a small independent and local charity, working to support families across Walsall. Our mission and values are the same as any Home-Start scheme; to offer a service to all families, whatever their background and need, with a particular focus on families who are socially excluded and not engaging with other services. Home-Start Walsall has over the past 20 years shaped our scheme to accommodate the changing needs of our community.
We support, already struggled with poor emotional health, isolation and loneliness
Our activities
Through our volunteers, we provide::
training, information, and support for both volunteers and families.
1:1 support for families
Support to access other appropriate agencies
Encouraging positive parent/child through storytelling sessions, how to share a story with a child, mobile library and story sacs
delivering play materials to homes
Encouraging participation with in social groups to overcome isolation eg swimming group, walking group, trips
During the “year of the pandemic”, we provided quality support, outside our usual remit to 72 Walsall families and 132 children with the help and dedication of 31 volunteers including Trustees.