Home-Start Manchester

Working in local communities since 2004, Home-Start Manchester supports families across the city of Manchester

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 Manchester’s additional services

Direct family work
Our Family Support Workers complement our volunteer offer by providing support to families with more complex needs or those requiring a specific response. This support is generic and we also have a PIMH Family Worker.

Thriving Babies: Confident Parents

The Thriving Babies: Confident Parents Project is about promoting the health, wellbeing and safeguarding of children through working differently with their parents during pregnancy and during the child’s early years. It is a multi agency approach, working proactively with parents to build on strengths. The project includes intensive assessment, support and intervention programme for at-risk babies.

Delivered by a multi-agency programme team composed of statutory and VCS partners;

• Home-Start
• Big Manchester (Barnardo’s)
• Midwifery
• Health Visiting
• CAPS (The Children and Parents Service)
• Early Help (MCC)
• Adult Social Care (MCC)
• The Big Life Group

 PLEASE NOTE; Referrals for this project must come through the ‘Thriving Babies Confident Parents panel’ only.

Asylum and Immigration
We offer all of our volunteers additional training in the Asylum process, including an overview of immigration law and processes. We work closely with services providing specialist support to this group to ensure we reach those families as early as possible. Greater Manchester Immigration Aid have delivered our volunteer training and are a source of support and guidance. We also actively recruited volunteers with lived experience of seeking asylum (often who now have Refugee or British citizenship status) to support families within this project.

To qualify for this project families can live Citywide but must be seeking asylum or have immigration issues which are impacting them.

Big Manchester
Big Manchester is a Barnardos-led VCS partnership involving Manchester Women’s Aid, Manchester Mind and Change Grow Live. The partnership works with families with complex needs relating to the toxic trio – domestic abuse, mental illness and substance mis-use, working with children of primary school age. Home-Start is funded by the local authority to provide volunteer step-down support for families. The project delivers a monthly parent peer support group for Big Manchester parents only.

Parent Infant Mental Health
This project is in partnership with the Children and Parent’s Service (pre-school Clinical Psychology), supporting parents, particularly those with mild to moderate mental health issues, to understand the needs of their baby and to develop secure attachments in the crucial 0-2 period. As well as developing specialist staff skills through additional training and regular clinical Supervision, we also deliver a comprehensive 4-day PIMH volunteer training course which is co-delivered with colleagues from Health Visiting and CAPS. In it’s 2^nd year this project has grown and is a huge success, with referrals accounting for half of the overall scheme’s demand.

To qualify for this project the family can live Citywide but must either be pregnant or have a child under 2.

First 1000 Days
This project is in North Manchester only and for the conception to age 2 age range. The volunteer-led support is generic as previously described. The project works closely with Manchester MIND’s Mum’s Matter programme.

Contact Us

Home-Start Manchester
Woodville Children’s Centre
Shirley Road
Cheetham
M8 0NE
Tel: 0161 721 4493
Email: info@homestartmcr.org.uk
www.homestartmanchester.com
Registered Charity number 1105353