News Release
Staffordshire's leading family support charity celebrates its 25th anniversary in style
5th May 2010
To mark Home-Start’s silver anniversary The Dowager Countess of Harrowby is hosting a reception at her home, Sandon Hall, on Tuesday 25th May 2010. The Countess is also patron of Home-Start Stafford & District.
Home-Start is the UK’s leading family support charity. 16,000 parent volunteers support nearly 34,000 families across the UK for many reasons including; post natal depression, lone parenting, multiple births, poverty, isolation and disability.
Home-Start in these situations provides a unique service for families – recruiting and training volunteers to provide non-judgemental practical and emotional support and help build the family’s confidence and ability to cope.
Across Staffordshire, Home-Start has seven schemes with more than 400 volunteers supporting over 600 families (with almost 1,900 children).
Carol Brown, Home-Start’s regional manager for the West said: “Looking back over the last 25 years it is great to know that the seven Home-Starts in Staffordshire have made such an impact on the local community. To hear a parent say that Home-Start has made such a difference to their lives is a fantastic experience.”
As well as celebrating its silver anniversary, one Home-Start, Staffordshire Moorlands, will also be presented with a national award.
Run by Home-Start and funded by Sainsbury’s, ‘Starting Young’ is a three year project that recognises the importance of children’s early years to their future health and development and the vital role parents play in supporting their children’s health and well being.
Home-Start Staffordshire Moorlands won the ‘Healthiest Home Visiting/Group Support’ category as part of the Starting Young Awards.
Louise Walker, senior coordinator at Home-Start Staffordshire Moorlands said: “Our ‘Pass It On Project’ was inspired by Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food project. It is based on the simple idea that one person who knows how to cook can pass on those skills to another who wants to learn. Our project linked a Home-Start volunteer with a Home-Start family wanting to learn to cook; the volunteer visited the family for a period of eight weeks to teach cooking within their own home.
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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 336 Home-Starts supporting nearly 34,000 families and over 71,000 children each year. Almost 16,000 volunteers visit families in their own homes – parents supporting other parents in a variety of situations including isolation, bereavement, multiple births, illness or disability.
