Home-Start Angus offers a unique service to young families. We offer regular support at home to parents-to-be and to those bringing up pre-school children. Our organisation recognises that for all of us that are bringing up or have brought up young children it can be hard. We are never quite prepared for the emotional onslaught of parenting responsibilities and when other factors such as not living near extended family, experiencing poor mental health, relationship difficulties, becoming a lone parent, poor housing or battling to get help for a child that has additional needs, parents can find themselves feeling overwhelmed and guilty that they are not coping.
We recruit, train and support volunteers with parenting experience. Many of them used Home-Start services themselves when they were bringing up young children and want to give something back. Our volunteers are sensitively matched with families referred to our organisation and undertake to visit them weekly for a few hours and offer an extra pair of hands, a listening ear or chumming up parents to help them make links with local services outside the home. The biggest difference they make however is through the relationship of trust they build with parents.
In addition to our home-visiting service, we offer 5 family groups across Angus.