Our own research and data:

We review our new projects and how we help parents and children to make sure we meet the needs of our families and volunteers.

We also use our data to inform current debates on family life – ranging from benefits changes and cuts in funding of local services to the changing face of volunteering and how to best support volunteers.

Your research:

We have a research governance committee which rigorously reviews all requests to contact our families, volunteers and staff. We remain committed to being transparent to both our families and our funders.  If you would like to propose a research project, please email [email protected]. 

 

Download our research:

• Annual Review 2022, May 2023
  Home-Start UK supports the Home-Start network by promoting high-quality standards, sharing effective practice, fundraising nationally and by raising awareness and influencing policy. It’s been another very busy year for Home-Start. This Annual Review gives a taster of highlights from Home-Start UK.

• Empowering Women - to build a brighter future, May 2022
  Working with our partner White Stuff we asked our Home-Start network to share with us the many ways they empower mums to enable them to overcome the challenges they face through our Empowering Women survey. We want to highlight some of these impactful projects happening in local communities across the UK through the Home-Start network. 
  
  
• Home Is Where We Start From, June 2021
  Research to measure the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on parents of young children, surveying over 1200 families around the UK. Findings revealed that families are facing unprecedented challenges, with the pandemic acting both as a magnifier of existing disadvantage, as well tipping more people, who were just about managing before, into poverty. Executive Summary
  
  
• Babies in Lockdown - listening to parents to build back better, August 2020
  Together with Best Beginnings and the Parent-Infant Foundation, Home-Start UK carried out a survey of almost 5,500 parents into their experiences of being pregnant, giving birth and living with a baby at home during the COVID-19 lockdown period of March - June 2020. 
  
  
• Home-Start support for families in the perinatal period and their contribution to PNIMH, April 2020
  In November 2019, as part of a UK wide development around Perinatal and Parent Infant Mental Health all local Home-Starts received a survey to gather information around current activities, areas of identified unmet needs and the support needs of the network to facilitate their work in this area. These are the results from Scotland. 
  
  

• Volunteer-led family intervention: a UK national programme, October 2019
  This paper, by Philip Sugarman, Vice-Chair, Home-Start UK; formerly, Hon. Senior Lecturer, King’s College London, Vis. Professor, University of Northampton and Kamal Chudasama, Systems Developer & Database Administrator, Home-Start UK reports data collected prospectively, from 2010 to 2018 from 300 local Home-Start charities across the UK. The study shows a large improvement effect demonstrated in levels of coping across a range of family needs. 

• The Nature of Home Visiting Support and Improvements in Emotional Well-being for Home-Start Parents, January 2019
  This briefing paper by Dr Nell Warner describes research carried out at Cardiff University using Home-Start’s administrative data (MESH). The research considered families in different circumstances and looked at how the emotional well-being of parents in those different circumstances improves during Home-Start home visiting support.
  
  
• 2017 Impact Report, June 2017
  This impact report is based on data collected by local Home-Starts between April 1 2015 and March 31 2016. It shows the difference Home-Start support makes for families, children and the volunteers who give their time to support members of their community.
  
  
• Adroddiad Effaith 2017, June 2017 
  Mae’r adroddiad effaith hwn yn seiliedig ar ddata a gasglwyd gan Home-Start yn lleol rhwng Ebrill1 2015 a Mawrth 21 2016. Mae’n dangos y gwahaniaeth y mae Home-Start yn ei wneud i deuluoedd, plant a’r gwirfoddolwyr sy’n rhoi eu hamser i gefnogi aelodau o’u cymuned.
  
  

• New volunteerism in Scotland with Home-Start, June 2016
  How volunteering produces positive impacts for families, volunteers and local communities in Scotland

• Big Hopes Big Future - evaluation report, September 2015
  The pilot of our programme to give children the skills they need when they start school.

• The Impact of Volunteering on Volunteers, June 2015
  How volunteering benefits Home-Start volunteers and their communities.

• Money Talk - Adults’ and children’s views on talking about money, August 2014
  Adults' and young children's attitudes towards talking about money. 

• Earning Money - Children's aspirations and their views on work and wages, October 2014
  Parents' and young children's views on work and wages, and aspirations for the children's future careers. 

• 2014 impact report – Welsh, February 2015
  The impact of nearly 15,000 family support volunteers providing regular, one-to-one support for 29,170 families

• 2014 impact report – English, February 2015
  The impact of nearly 15,000 family support volunteers providing regular, one-to-one support for 29,170 families.

• Building Resilience:  volunteer support for families with complex circumstances and needs, November 2013
  The way volunteers customise their support to families' needs underpins the journey of change the family goes on.  

• Long-term changes in parenting and child behavior after the Home-Start family support program, February 2013
  Longitudinal research from The Netherlands shows positive impact on parenting outcomes after support had recently ended and positive outcomes for child behaviour and parenting three years after the support had ended.

• Maximising Income - project summary, September 2011
  Maximising Income - evaluation report, September 2011
  The effect of Home-Start volunteers on families' ability to use an online 'checker' to increase their income from benefits and grants.

• Start Young Get Set For Life, January 2011
  Behaviour change and life chances in the context of healthy eating – theory, policy and good practice

• The Early Learning partnership project, November 2008
  Home-start's approach to creating a learning environment for young families.

• Learning from families, October 2005
  Home-Start plays a pivotal role in preventing problems that socially excluded families face by helping parents cope, and reducing the impact of their difficulties.
  
  
• Armbands in Deep Water, June 2005.
  A summary of research into Home-Start's home-visiting volunteers.