Home-Start HOST

Working in local communities since 1998 Home-Start HOST currently supports families in Oldham, Stockport, Tameside and Bolton with projects in Glossop.

All Home-Starts offer locally trained parent volunteers to provide emotional and practical support to families in their own homes. However each individual Home-Start offers a range of additional services/support groups and activities for parents and their children.

Home-Start HOST’s additional services

Family Support:
Our family support service is considered our ‘core work’. It’s open to families with at least one child under the age of five and involves trained volunteers (who are parents themselves) offering weekly home visiting support. This service is available in Oldham, Stockport, Tameside & Bolton but we have different levels of capacity in each area according to funding.

Parent Infant Mental Health (PIMH):
Our PIMH service operates in Tameside & Glossop, Stockport, Bolton and more recently in Oldham and works in very close partnership with colleagues from local PIMH/Early Attachment Service teams. It involves focusing on the vital 0-2 period when parent-infant relationships are so important in terms of baby brain development. This work involves more training for staff and volunteers and our staff receive additional support and supervision from the PIMH lead in each area.

PIMH Diversity Project:
This work is funded by Comic Relief and aims to help our PIMH team to reach more families from diverse communities in Tameside & Oldham. The funding allows us to employ two multi-lingual Diversity Co-ordinators who work in our PIMH team and who take a lead on supporting families from Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities.

Play, Learn, Grow (PLG):
Play, Learn, Grow is our Children in Need funded school readiness project aimed at children aged 2-4. It involves an 8 week programme to help parents support their child’s learning and development.

Infant Feeding Peer Support:
This service supports parents in Oldham and Tameside antenatally and postnatally in order to support informed decision making around how to feed their baby. In particular, we offer support for those wanting to breastfeed to help them to get it established in the early days and weeks following birth. We offer support at Tameside General Hospital, through home visits, over the phone and through a number of peer support groups.

Bumps to Two’s Groups:
These online groups are small supportive groups that aim to help parents connect with each other. They have been particularly important during lockdown when new parents were unable to get out and meet other new parents.

Two-Year-Old Education:
This project involves supporting parents to access free nursery places for up to 15 hours for children in Oldham. Parents are supported to see if they are eligible for a funded place and are supported to find the most suitable setting for their child.

Dad Matters:
Dad Matters is a HOST project with its own separate brand so that it appeals directly to dads. Dad Matters supports dads in the 0-2 period to have positive relationships with their families and to help them with stress, anxiety and mental health issues. We want to support dads to access services when they need them (services that have traditionally been aimed only at mum) and we want dads to know how important they are for their baby’s development.
Our Dad Matters work involves some universal work across the whole of Greater Manchester (i.e. aimed at ALL dads) and we have funding in some areas for some more specific work with dads on a 1:1 basis. This is currently available in Tameside & Bolton.
As well as our work at HOST, we have supported a number of other Home-Starts to develop Dad Matters services and it is now operating in:
Home-Start Trafford, Salford & Wigan (in Salford)
Home-Start Warrington
Home-Start Stroud & Gloucester (across the Home-Start Gloucester consortium)
Home-Start Blackpool

In 2021 we are about to start work with:
Home-Start Surrey
Home-Start Leeds
Home-Start Warwickshire

Oldham Community Genetics:
This service operates in Oldham, particularly in the South Asian communities of Oldham, and aims to reduce the rates of infant mortality by raising awareness of recessive conditions and of genetic screening. We also support families with children affected by a genetic disorder.

Empowering Parents Empowering Communities (EPEC):
In Stockport we work one day a week on the Empowering Parents Empowering Communities project. EPEC is an evidence-based model of parenting courses which are led by local parent facilitators who have completed accredited training and who receive ongoing support from parenting specialists, including one of our team.

Contact Us

Home-Start HOST
Ryecroft Hall
Manchester Rd
Audenshaw
Manchester
M34 5ZJ
Tel: 0161 344 0669
Email: info@homestarthost.org.uk
www.home-starthost.org.uk
Registered Charity number 1135838