Over more than 50 years non-judgemental, compassionate volunteer support has been at the heart of Home-Start’s work with families.

Last year, 9,000 trained Home-Start volunteers supported 58,000 families and 76,000 children across the UK.

Home-Start volunteers not only strengthen the families they work with, improving health and opportunities for families, the volunteers gain too, increasing confidence and improving well-being.

Family support, centred on trusted relationships between parents and volunteers, creates connections within communities, reduces isolation and builds social capital.

To ensure that Home-Start’s volunteer offer to both families and volunteers remains relevant and effective for the future, Home-Start UK, with the support of Pears Foundation, has created Compassionate Communities to innovate new ways to attract, recruit and retain more volunteers, and increase support for families.

What is Compassionate Communities?

Compassionate Communities will bring Home-Starts from across the country together and innovate new ways to recruit, support and retain this team of volunteers to ensure that local Home-Starts are equipped to help the growing number of families with the voluntary, relational based support that has been shown to improve outcomes for families and children.

Grants have been made to 13 local Home-Starts to invest locally to develop, test and share new models of volunteer recruitment and support.

Those involved in the project meet regularly to share learning and further embed a culture of continual improvement and innovation across the federation. By taking an agile approach throughout this phase of work, we are making sure we adapt to learning as it emerges.

By the end of this project the hope is that the 13 local Home-Starts will have successfully transformed their volunteer practice, with tangible improvements in their sustainability and impact, and that we have developed the evidence and resources to inform roll out nationally.

What types of innovation is being funded?

The Compassionate Communities project is funding innovation in volunteering in Home-Starts from across the UK.

Projects include:

• One project is looking at developing cross-community and community development projects. The project will include activities like sports events, cultural exchanges, and training sessions to help build understanding and respect with the goal of creating a model that can be used elsewhere to support peacebuilding and sustainable development. 
• By working in collaboration with grassroots groups, higher education providers, and other organisations one Home-Start aims to helping isolated families in rural settings by developing new short-term or micro-volunteering opportunities to improving volunteer retention and increase family support.
• After identifying families’ need for light-touch support in the months after in-home assistance, one Home-Start will test the development of ongoing but lower intensity support to help families transition smoothly.  

Dr Sarah McMullen, Director of Network Impact at Home-Start UK said:

For over 50 years, volunteers have been the heart of Home-Start’s work, providing compassionate, non-judgmental and life-changing support for parents and their children. Yet, with changing patterns of volunteering, it is vital that we are able to offer those who dedicate their time to supporting families the right opportunities and the best experience. That is why this funding from Pears Foundation is so critical. Now we have the opportunity to attract the next generation of volunteers, allowing us to support more families than ever.

Innovation and learning in Volunteering

Home-Start’s national network of independent charities that respond to local conditions and demands, creates a culture of innovation, while the federated structure allows learning and experience of what works to be spread to communities across the UK.

The Compassionate Communities project builds in on Home-Start UK’s 2023 National Volunteer Summit, which was held to mark 50 years of supporting families.

Speakers from Age UK, BBC Children In Need, Groundwork, NCVO, Royal Opera House, The Scouts, Vision for Volunteering, Volunteer Scotland, Waffle, HiB, Waltham Forest, SJ Pickering Consulting and Sarah E. Frost came together to share their wealth of knowledge on Volunteering as par of the event.

The event was opened with a message from Baroness Floella Benjamin, who is Patron of Home-Start Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham who said:

“I’m so proud to say that Home-Start do such an important job supporting parents and their children in their earliest years because as I always say childhood lasts a lifetime so it is our duty to build every child’s confidence by nurturing, supporting and loving them in order for them to pass on those qualities to their children.”