No qualifications needed
You don’t need any qualifications to be a Home-Start volunteer, though parenting experience is essential. You can be a mother, father, grandparent or step-parent – experience in the full time care of children is what’s important.
Friendliness, a caring attitude and good listening skills are essential. You will receive all the training you need and have a criminal records check, as required by the law, before you are matched with a family that needs you.
What’s involved?
Being a volunteer means visiting a family for a couple of hours each week. Families need your help for lots of reasons – perhaps because of post-natal depression, disability, multiple births or because they’re young and new to parenthood.
A typical Home-Start visit is hard to define because every family's needs are different. It might involve a rare ‘grown-up chat’ over a cup of tea, being of assistance when they need to make and keep medical appointments or helping them to get out for a trip to the park.
Home-Start volunteers are not babysitters, home-helps or counsellors although from time to time they may perform all those tasks.
It’s about friendship – one parent helping another. With your help parents can gain the confidence to manage on their own and give their children the best possible start in life.
Download Home-Start’s guide to what’s involved in being a volunteer
What’s in it for you?
Home-Start volunteers talk about the personal satisfaction they get from supporting other parents. Many say what a huge boost volunteering has given to their self-esteem and confidence, and others talk about the friends they’ve made.
Some people have got such great personal satisfaction from their volunteering experiences that they decide to stay with Home-Start helping local families for five, ten and even 20 years.
Interested? Register for more information.
What GMTV's Fiona Phillips wished she'd known before becoming a parent :
"When your children are small, you're always in a rush and you're often so tired and you don't know what you're doing. When my son Mackenzie was about 9 months old, I put him down in his car seat by the side of the car while I was struggling with my supermarket bags. I was horribly late for an appointment so I jumped in the car and reversed out, totally forgetting about Mackenzie! He was lucky I didn't run him over!
Like any parent, I know how things can get on top of you when you've got young children. I think the volunteers recruited by the Real Parents campaign will make a huge difference to families who are struggling - having someone you can relate to, not a 'super nanny' is worth its weight in gold."
Find out why other celebrities are supporting the Real Parents campaign...
Lorraine and Elaine - “She’s not just a volunteer. She’s a friend too.’ Volunteer Lorraine Whiteway has been volunteering with Home-Start for nearly two years and felt she had some free time once her son Ben, age six, went to school. <read more>
