ScotlandOur local Home-Starts across Scotland support over 3000 families and nearly 6000 children very year. Our local community network of over 1000 trained volunteers work with families from before birth through to school age offering compassionate, confidential help to parents when they need us most. Our focus is on enabling parents and carers to be the warm, consistent and nurturing adults they want to be so that their children get the best possible start in life. Starting in the home our approach is as individual as the people we are helping – on most days of the week you will find teams of great parent to parent supporters involved in activities as diverse as offering one to one support around perinatal mental health problems, increasing breastfeeding through local support groups, getting children outdoors through gardening and messy play days, tackling the attainment gap in partnership with schools, bringing lonely or isolated parents together to forge new friendships and getting dads involved in antenatal workshops. Home-Start in Scotland brings the Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) approach to life by bringing family support to the parents and carers who need it most because childhood can’t wait. volunteer our work Contact us in Edinburgh Volunteering in Glasgow Volunteers like Isabel and Angela from Home-Start Glasgow North provide family support during weekly home visits and at weekly family groups. “I don’t have children of my own but I do have children in the family,” says Isabel, who now volunteers at one of Home-Start Glasgow North’s family support groups. “The group helps the mums and the dads to get to know each other a bit,” she says. “It’s good fun; the kids love it, the mums enjoy it and I think everybody goes out feeling better than hopefully they did when they came in.” Angela is a home-visiting volunteer and makes weekly home-visits to support a family. “I came to a point in my life: my children had grown up. I wanted to do something different,” she explains. “I was a bit nervous filling in the application form but everyone put me at ease. The training was good fun. Although it was serious as well - it was good fun. I’m enjoying it so far and looking forward to the future”. Both Isabel and Angela completed the Home-Start volunteer preparation course, which gave them the confidence to work with families who needed their support. Find out more about volunteering Manage Cookie Preferences