Help Starts at Home

Home-Start Knowsley is a voluntary organisation offering support, friendship and practical help to any family at home with at least one child under the age of five. The support we offer is to help alleviate some of the daily stresses and help prevent family crisis and breakdown.

How can Home-Start help?
A Home-Start volunteer will visit you regularly (usually once a week for a couple of hours) in your own home and offer:

Friendly support through difficult times for as long as it is helpful or needed.

Flexibility -you decide with your volunteer when visits will happen and how you spend your time.

Understanding - Home-Start volunteers are parents too! - and may have been supported by Home-Start themselves in the past.

Reassurance - all parents sometimes feel overwhelmed. You are not alone.

A listening ear and a shoulder to cry on, if needed.

An extra pair of hands but volunteers are not babysitters or home helps and any practical assistance is given on an individual voluntary basis as a friend.

Confidentiality - information about you and your family is never disclosed to anyone outside Home-Start except where a child may be at risk.

Choice - you can choose whether or not to accept Home-Start support. A volunteer will only visit at the invitation of the family.

Volunteers needed

No formal qualifications will be required but all Home-Start volunteers attend a course of preparation. Expenses for travel, phone calls, etc. are met by the scheme.

Home-Start volunteers:

• Come from many different backgrounds and vary in age but all are either parents or have parenting experience.
  
  
• Are carefully selected for their friendliness and understanding and are appropriately approved.
  
  
• Visit one or more families a week and take their own individual skills and experience to the families they visit.
  
  
• Are neither paid for their work nor are they professionals, so they will not replace the health visitor or social worker.
  
  
• Will visit when they are invited and accept you for who you are.

If you are interested and would like more information, please contact Lindsay-Tel: 07773-308840.

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