£5.05m Government funding boost

15 September 2004

Home-Start, the UK's leading family support charity, is to receive Government funding of £2.46m during 2004/5 with an expected further £2.59m in 2005/6 to develop and expand its family services across England, leading to better outcomes for families.

Home-Start, which began with one project in Leicester 30 years ago, has grown to a network of 337 community-based projects in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland and last year helped 64,000 children and 30,000 families across the UK. The charity supports families with young children through a home-visiting service delivered by 10,500 trained parent volunteers.

The Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP, Minister for Children and Young People said: "I am delighted to announce a significant increase in our funding to Home-Start. We are providing £2.46m this year and, subject to Parliamentary approval, we will provide £2.59m in 2005/6. Through the dedicated hard work of volunteers across the country, all of whom have to be parents themselves, Home-Start makes a dramatic difference to parents who need that extra support to see them through a challenging period in their lives."

This new funding follows the biggest shake up in children's services for 30 years after the tragic death of Victoria Climbié. An inquiry by Lord Laming recommended root and branch changes in the organisation and delivery of children's services. The resulting Green Paper 'Every Child Matters' specifically picked out Home-Start as a service that should be expanded nationwide to be available to families in every community in England.

"Research into Home-Start and other home visiting schemes confirms that they produce benefits for parents and children. Home-Start raises self-confidence, improves social networks, reduces difficult behaviour on the part of the child and improves physical and mental health."
Government Green Paper 'Every Child Matters'.

Home-Start Chief Executive Dylan Harrison, said: "Home-Start has a highly valued presence in local communities and 30 years experience working with families and we are delighted to be playing such a vital part in the Government's delivery of improved services to children. We support children and parents in some of the most disadvantaged areas in the country, in many cases working alongside local SureStart programmes and with families who have multiple problems."

"Our volunteers visit families at home and that very personal support has a proven and lasting impact on their lives and future prospects. What parents do with their children at home is far more important to their achievement at school than social class or level of education. Home-Start volunteers are there to help parents at that very early stage before their difficulties reach crisis point."

The Government grant, which is for Home-Start's work in England, will be used to extend support to even more families in even more communities and to ensure that established Home-Start projects have the support they need to secure more sustainable funding locally.

Home-Start currently has projects in 119 of the 150 English local authorities and aims to help an additional 5,000 families each year up to 2006-07. The additional funding will also support Home-Start's objective of providing a universal service to every family wherever they live.

"This will have a significant impact on the lives of the children and parents we already support and those who currently cannot access Home-Start," said Dylan Harrison. "Home-visiting is still our core work but we will also be able to make our service more available through specialist work with teenage mothers, asylum seekers, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.

"The Government said in the Green Paper, 'Every Child Matters' that it intends to put supporting parents and children at the heart of its approach to improving children's lives. This philosophy has always been at the heart of Home-Start's work. By supporting parents we are helping to give children a better start in life."
15 September 2004.

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Further information from Home-Start press office

Note to Editors:

1. Chief Executive Dylan Harrison and Home-Start case studies are available for interview. Please call the numbers above to make arrangements.

2. Since it began in Leicester in 1973 Home-Start has helped over 250,000 families and 500,000 children in the UK and with British Forces in Germany and Cyprus and has now spread across the world, with Home-Start projects in 15 other countries. We help families (with at least one child under five) who are trying to cope with anything from post-natal depression, multiple births and serious illness to isolation, disabilities and children's' behavioural problems.

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