Home Start NE Worcestershire
Home Start NE Worcestershire received a grant from the first round of WCF’s Strengthening Worcestershire Fund run in partnership with Worcestershire County Council.
The charity supports families in Redditch and Bromsgrove with children 0-18. They provide services that families together, helps create resilience, provides a voice and opportunities to give something back. They visit families at home and match them with a volunteer who offers emotional and practical support.
With their grant, Home Start NE Worcestershire trained nine new family support volunteers and started training twelve new volunteers. They matched volunteers to help families at home and family support workers to more complex families.
WCF’s grant helped the charity continue to run their services including: three weekly family groups; a group for parents of children with additional needs; a post-natal group, a circle of security group; Freedom Programmes for both adult victims and children; baby massage and weaning; a finance, budgeting and form filling service; digital support; Mood Masters courses; person-centred counselling with placements for two students; individual therapy from clinical psychologists; three ‘Birth and Beyond’ programmes in partnership with Family Hubs, a support programme for teenage mums as well as providing a safe warm space and food bank.
Of their experience with WCF, Manager, Karen Jones, said:
“We found the process very supportive and response to queries immediate. We loved that our Safeguarding policy was scrutinised.”
Karen also told us about one mum who was isolated and lonely with a distrust of services. The charity’s support helped her confidence and trust to grow. Mum is now a great role model to other parents and has started buddying. She welcomes new parents and encourages children in group play. Another mum received weekly support for a number of months. She was introduced to a family group to encourage her to mix with other mums. She has also grown in confidence and they helped her find a nursery placement. Mum has now returned to work, baby is at nursery and mum is still socialising in the group.
Parents said:
“Thank you for helping me leave the past in the past, and for helping me believe I am a good mum.”
“This has been so helpful in developing lots of my relationships, not just with my child.”
“It has been so good hearing other parent’s experiences and reassuring me that I’m not alone.”
“I have purpose! Working, my days can just go, but when I’m at Home Start, I leave feeling like I’ve done something valuable with my time and my mental health is better for having seen others”.
WCF distributed £187,000, from the Strengthening Worcestershire Fund first round, supporting 31 different projects. These met a community need for cost of living, ageing well, tackling loneliness and social isolation, providing information and advice and supporting unpaid carers. We are delighted to see how the grants benefited each of the groups awarded and, through their work, continue to enable them to positively impact Worcestershire people.
See more information on the Strengthening Worcestershire Fund and our other grant programmes here.
For further information on WCF, to talk to us about making a donation, setting up a fund or supporting local communities, please contact Director Lucy Wells at [email protected] / 07909 111812.
For information on grants available locally and nationally, please visit the county council grants database: Home | Worcestershire County Council’s Funding Finder.
