Home-Start » Services
Home-visiting
Home-Start is available to any family with at least one child under the age of five years (and not at school full-time) who live in Kirklees.
Families can be referred to us by their health visitor, social worker, or any other agency, or they can refer themselves.
We aim to match the family with a volunteer who will fit in well with their family life. Volunteers, who are usually parents themselves, are carefully recruited and trained before they begin supporting a family.
They visit the family once a week, for around three hours at a time, and do anything a good friend would do - for example, helping with shopping, going to the park or to GP/clinic/hospital visits, playing with children, or simply helping parents understand their children's needs.
Volunteers are there to give practical help,to listen and to help families have FUN! They are not "experts" - they are parents who know how hard family life can be. They approach families in a non-judgemental way and work alongside them.
Each family has a named co-ordinator who oversees the match with their volunteer and who they can get in touch with at any time. The co-ordinator will visit them from time to time, to assess how the support is going, and to see if there is a continued need for support. We do not set time-limits on the length of support offered.
The service is part funded by Kirklees Council and Kirklees Primary Care Trust although we are completely independent of both these organisations. Other funding comes from charitable trusts, donations and our own fundraising activities.
Family Support Groups
We plan to run three weekly family support groups for teenage parents in different parts of Kirklees.
Home-Start volunteers will be present at every group session, along with our Group Worker, Angie, to ensure a warm welcome for everyone. The groups will offer a safe place for children to play and informal support for their parents.
The first group will start in September 2007 in our own premises here in Dalton for young parents in the Dalton and Rawthorpe area. If you would like to refer a young family to this group, please call Angie on 01484 421925.
Watch this space for details of other Home-Start groups in the future!