Home-Start Cotswolds
There for parents when they need us most,
because childhood can't wait
About Us
Home-Start is a national family support charity that helps parents to build better lives for their children. Each year, trained volunteers provide support and friendship to more than 58,000 families and 75,000 children across the United Kingdom.
Home-Start Cotswolds is one of more than 180 local Home-Start schemes which are run as small independent charities under the Home-Start UK umbrella. Our scheme supports families with children under the age of 5 throughout the Cotswolds from our office in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. Volunteers work alongside parents in their own homes to improve parenting skills, boost confidence and well-being, help with family management and establish social networks. We have also now joined with two other Home-Start schemes (Stroud & Gloucester and North & West Gloucestershire) to form the consortium Home-Start Gloucestershire (see www.home-startgloucestershire.org.uk).
Home-Start’s monitoring and evaluation captures families’ needs at the beginning of support and then every 3 months until support ends, measuring the impact of how Home-Start has helped in specific areas.
With Home-Start a family can be sure of support that is non-judgemental and confidential. There is no stigma attached to Home-Start’s help which is why so many referrers and parents contact us to ask for support. Once contact has been made, families meet a Home-Start Coordinator who will carefully match them with a trained volunteer and oversee the support.
The wider Home-Start UK network ensures that the same high quality of service is offered at each of the local Home-Start schemes, by:
- providing training for all staff
- assessing Home-Start work against agreed quality standards
- offering information through a UK-wide Intranet
- advising trustees and staff in areas of governance.
Next: Meet the team
