Volunteer for Home-Start
Be a Home-Start Volunteer
No special qualifications are necessary to become a Home-
Talking and listening can empower families to overcome their difficult situations. Volunteers are offered on-going training and support activities including specialist speakers and visits to family support services, as well as informal social gatherings.
What it takes to be a Home-Start Volunteer
- You must be a parent/caring experience
- You should have a non-judgemental attitude and understand about the pressures of bringing up a family.
- You are required to attend our volunteer preparation course including specialist safeguarding training.
- You should be able to commit to 2-3 hours a week.
What you can expect from us
- A safe, respectful, fair and non-discriminatory volunteering environment.
- An enhanced disclosure and barring service check paid in full by Home-Start in Northampton.
- You will be able to claim travel expenses during the training and while you support a family.
- You will be fully supported by our co-ordinators while you are visiting families.
- You will be invited to attend additional training and social events throughout the year.
Our Volunteering Opportunities
FAMILY SUPPORT
This is at the core of what we do. We offer families one to one support form a volunteer, normnally for 6 months. Support is parent led they tell us what we can help with and how. We offer both home visiting and virtual support.
2-3 hours per week
GROUP SUPPORT
Volunteers help us deliver our stay and play groups. Offering play role modelling, information sharing and emotional support. It may alo involve child supervision whilst parents take part in group work.
2-3 hours per week
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
This is for members of the community who can’t offer thir time consistently every week but still want to help when they can. Community Supporters might help run a family trip or fundraising event, wrap Christmas presents, or help in our offices.
Ad hoc
ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT
Becoming an Administrative volunteer working in our charity means you’ll be working closely with our team of passionate and dedicated people who are working hard to make a difference. Duties could be anything from minute taking to data entry.
TBC
Volunteer stories
Volunteer Story 1
During the preparation course we covered lots of topics which were very well presented by different speakers. I laughed and cried at some of the...
Volunteer Story 2
I had some free time after retiring and was looking for a new challenge. I had undertaken voluntary work in the past mostly with adults and...
Volunteer Story 3
“It wasn’t the reward that mattered or the recognition you might harvest. It was your depth of commitment, your quality of service, the product of...
Volunteer Story 4
My ‘family’ do not have a cooker so we made a chocolate microwave cake together. I read out the instructions and encouraged my ‘Mum’ to make a...
Volunteer Story 5
During the preparation course we covered lots of topics which were very well presented by different speakers. I laughed and cried at some of the...
Training to be a Home-Start volunteer
Our volunteers undergo a full training and assessment programme before being matched with a family.
The training sessions will prepare you for the home visiting role, covering topics such as child development, safeguarding vulnerable children, difficulties and issues experienced by families, boundaries and values, supervision and support, and will provide you with practical skills for working alongside parents and their children.
Once you are trained and matched with a family, you will receive regular supervision with a member of our team and ongoing training opportunities to enable you to develop your skills further.
Messages from Home-Start Volunteers
Other ways to Volunteer for Home-Start
Share your time and skills to help our work
If being a Home Visiting Volunteer isn’t for you, you may be able to help us in other ways. Many people have volunteered their time and skills for:
- supporting family groups & outings
- administration work
- music, craft and storytelling
- healthy eating sessions
- fundraising
- digital promotion
- and so much more
You may also be able to help in ways we haven’t thought about yet.
So if you want to get involved, get in touch and let us know what you have in mind.
Join us as a Trustee to help shape the future of our work with families
Our Trustees provide essential leadership, guidance and governance from their own professional or lived experiences. They also play an important role as ambassadors for our work and can offer particular skills to the organisation (like human resources, information management or finance, for example). We welcome interest from those who can be passionate about our work with parents, children, families and the community.
Importantly, the Board of Trustees should reflect the communities in which we work. We already benefit from a variety of skills, experiences and backgrounds and now need to add to that dynamic and creative team.
The minimum commitment as a Trustee is for 8 – 10 hours each month, to attend meetings or to engage in Board discussions via email and online forums. Further opportunities to get involved are possible too, so we can be flexible to suit individual motivations to volunteer.
Get in touch with your local Home-Start:
Become a Home-Start Volunteer Today
Home-Start’s team of trained volunteers make sure a child’s early years count. By volunteering just a few hours each week you can transform the lives of young children and their parents in your community. Click to find out more.