Welcome to our new website!
Our Vision
Home-Start believes that children need a happy and secure childhood and that parents play the key role in giving their children a good start in life and helping them achieve their full potential. Home-Start wants to see a society in which all parents have the support they need to give their children the best start in life.
Our Mission
Home-Start offers a unique service. We recruit and train volunteers, who are usually parents themselves, to visit families at home and offer them informal, friendly and confidential support. The families we help have at least one pre-school child under 5.
To help give children the best possible start in life, Home-Start supports parents as they grow in confidence, strengthen their relationship with their children and widen their links with the local community.
What Home-Start offers
- A volunteer with parenting experience to visit parents with young children at home. The volunteer offers tailor-made, one-to-one support, regularly - usually on a weekly basis.
- Emotional support to help parents find ways to manage and resolve problems.
- Direct support for children including playing, listening, having fun, establishing routines, encouraging development and providing opportunities for outings and treats.
- Practical help with getting to appointments, doing the shopping, budgeting, nutrition and meal planning, cooking and making the home safe.
- Help so parents can get out, meet others, and become more involved in their own community.
- Support Groups for teenage mothers and their children
- Information and links to other organisations including health and educational services.
- Attendance at meetings and moral support, especially in relation to dealing with case conferences or solicitors and court cases.
- Access to parenting advice and parenting skills training.
The Home-Start Approach
As a Home-Start scheme, we are rooted in the community we serve. We are managed locally in Kirklees but are supported by a national organisation, Home-Start UK, which offers direction, training, information and guidance to schemes, and ensures consistent and quality support for parents and children.
Home-Start has a proven, lasting, positive impact on the development of children and the health and welfare of the family.