Press Release
Home-Start Monmouthshire opens its doors in the local community.
Issued: 3rd June 2011
Home-Start Monmouthshire opens its doors in the local community.
After securing a three- year Lottery grant, and eight new volunteers, Home-Start Monmouthshire is now ready to start working with local families.
Eight parents from the local community are already taking part in the Home-Start training course which ends in July. The second training course begins in September, and Home-Start is keen to hear from anyone who would like to help support a local family.
It is hoped that by the end of the Lottery grant, Home-Start will have 75 volunteers supporting fragile families across the Monmouthshire community.
John Waters, Chair of the trustees for the Monmouthshire project, said: "The Children’s Partnership originally asked the parenting sub-group to investigate the possibilities of obtaining funding to help support local families that had been identified as being in need. This was some 18 months ago and since then the steering group and then the management committee have worked hard to obtain the funding and set up the scheme".
He then went on to say that “this was a very exciting start and all involved hope that they will be able to make a real difference to the lives of those who use the project”.
The first Home-Start in Wales was set up in Conwy in 1985, and now along with 333 other Home-Starts forms part of the UK’s leading family support charity.
Home-Start recruits and trains volunteers who then offer emotional and practical support to families who are struggling to cope. Support is confidential and non-judgmental, taking place in the family’s own home. Home-Start supports parents for as long as they need it as they grow in confidence, strengthen their relationships with their children and widen their links in the community.
Support can be for a number of reasons, including poverty, isolation, mental health, illness, lone parenting, multiple births and supporting families where a child is subject to a child protection plan.
In Wales last year, over 700 Home-Start volunteers supported almost 2,000 families and over 3,000 children.
One family supported by Home-Start said: “If it were not for Home-Start, I wouldn’t be here anymore and my children would be in care.”
Referrals to Home-Start come from a variety of sources, such as social services, GP’s, health visitors, children’s centres and 25% of families refer themselves.
One referrer to Home-Start said: “I feel able to refer families confidently to Home-Start, when my part of the work with the family is complete, I know I am leaving the family in good hands.”
Hilary Owen, a regional consultant for Home-Start in Wales explained; “ We are very fortunate to have secured a three- year Lottery grant to work with Monmouthshire families, but we still need to secure further funding to make sure our vital family support service continues once our Lottery funding has ended.”
Hilary continued: “Home-Start is a cost effective service, supporting families before they reach crisis point, and statutory agencies have to get involved. For the next three years, we will be providing a service to Monmouthshire families at no cost to the county’s children’s services department over the next three years.”
-ENDS-
Notes to Editor
Home-Start is the UK’s leading family support charity. We recruit and train volunteers to support parents, in their own homes, with at least one child under the age of five. Our home visiting work is unique in the UK. The charity was set up in 1973 and now has 334 Home-Starts supporting nearly 35,000 families and almost 73,000 children each year. Almost 16,500 volunteers visit families in their own homes – parents supporting other parents in a variety of situations including isolation, bereavement, multiple births, illness or disability.
Contact details:
Jo McLeish, Press and Pr Officer, Home-Start UK
Tel: 0116 2587933
Email: jmcleish@home-start.org.uk
Website: www.home-start.org.uk
