Home-Start Hampshire is a voluntary organisation in which volunteers offer regular support and practical help to families under stress to help give their children the best possible start in life.
Support is confidential, non-judgemental and as individual as the families we help.
Home-Start Hampshire exists to help develop our services to meet the growing need across our local community. We provide a range of support to families with at least one child under the age of five, across the county.
Home-Start Hampshire works because our volunteers understand how hard being a parent can be. They work alongside parents, in their own homes, to help them cope with the stresses and strains of life and make sure they have the confidence, skills, time and strength they need to nurture their children.
Home-Start Approach
Home-Start schemes are rooted in the community they serve. We are managed locally but are supported by a national organisation, Home-Start UK, which offers direction, training, information and guidance to schemes and ensures consistent and quality support for parents and children.
Home-Start has a proven, lasting, positive impact on the development of children and the health and welfare of the family. Our work is underpinned by a robust safeguarding policy, which can be viewed here.
Follow this link to download our Annual Report for 2024/25. Our ‘About Us’ video can be found by clicking on the play button on the image below.
Why Home-Start matters
The early years of a child’s life are vital for their development. What goes on inside a family during these years strongly determines the opportunities and life chances children have.
Children who are raised in a stable, loving, family environment are more likely to have a positive and healthy future. But being a parent isn’t easy and sometimes life can get in the way.
Circumstances throw you off course and everything else can take a back seat. A child caught up in this can miss out on the love, routine and stimulation that are so vital for their future.
Our supporters tell us ….
“Services like this are brilliant. We want as a nation to ensure that all vulnerable families have the most help in promoting that [vital] link between themselves and their babies. Young people want to learn how to be good parents.”
“It’s fundamentally important to help families to bring up children. It’s the hardest job in the world. As a society, we need to help families. That support is really important.”
“Home-Start helps our society to ensure we are not neglecting families. We neglect at our peril, for young brains are shaped by what parents are able to give their children. If we do not support parents in that giving, we hurt ourselves, in the costs of health, social work, prisons. So Home-Start offers services not just to families but to taxpayers and politicians. Thank you, Home-Start.”
“Research into Home-Start…confirms that they produce benefits for parents and children. Home-Start raises self-confidence, improves social networks, reduces difficult behaviour on the part of the child and improves physical and mental health.”
“A central component of Home-Start X service is to provide support early, before family problems or pressures evolve into deeper and more challenging forms of family crisis. This early intervention approach enables families to strengthen their own capabilities and gives them a vital source of sustained support.”
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