Home-Start East Surrey is a registered charity which consists of a small team of experienced, qualified staff, who recruit, train, supervise and support a team of around 40 volunteers, who go out into the community and support families who are facing challenging or difficult circumstances. Each volunteer will visit a family in their home on a weekly basis, or support them in group activities/ accessing other community services for up to six months. We cover Redhill & Reigate, Merstham, Horley, Dorking and the Tandridge area. The families we work with are either referred to us by professionals, including health visitors, family centre staff, GPs and schools/nurseries, or families can refer themselves to us for support. All referral forms are on our website www.home-starteastsurrey.org.uk. We support families from all religious, ethnic, cultural or social backgrounds, irrespective of gender, sexuality or any other factor that makes their family unique and special. We treat everyone we work with as an individual and tailor our support to meet their particular needs. Our key aims are to:
- Offer support and practical assistance to families, with at least one child under the age of 12, in their own home, through one visit per week.
- encourage a family to build on their own strengths, to foster resilience and emotional well-being, through the offer of a one-to-one relationship.
- Maintain the confidentiality of Home-Start families and offer reliability, commitment and honesty.
The 9-week initial volunteer preparation course covers essential topics such as safeguarding children, supporting parents and the role of a Home-Start volunteer. It is important that the prospective volunteers can attend the entire training course. The course is held on one day per week from 9.30am to 2pm, with breaks over the school holidays. We really value our volunteers as without them we could not provide this unique service, and we feel that our comprehensive training course really prepares them to meet the differing needs of our families..