Home Visiting volunteer support is at the heart of Home-Start Newark.

All of our Home Visiting Volunteers have parenting experience or significant experience caring for children. Our support is voluntary and led by needs decided by you.

What can we help with

For the past 40 years we have been supporting families in their own homes on a range of issues including:

• feeling isolated or lonely
• suffering with post-natal depression and finding it hard to talk to anyone about it
• having a hard time coping with your child’s illness or disability
• being affected by the death of a family member
• struggling with the emotional and practical demands of twins or triplets
• finding it hard to cope with relationship difficulties
• feeling exhausted or depressed
• coping with your own illness or disability
• struggling with money worries or debt
• finding it hard to get out and about
• going through a tough time managing your child’s behaviour
• feeling unsupported by your friends and family

If you feel you may benefit from our home visiting support and you:

• live in the Newark and surrounding areas, or Ollerton, Boughton and Bilsthorpe.
• Have at least one child under the age of 5 years.

Then please have a look at our referral page.

What support looks like

Once you are referred or make a self-referral, one of our Family Support Coordinators will visit you to discuss your needs and how you think Home-Start Newark can help you.

If at the end of the visit, yourself and the Coordinator decide you would like to progress with the referral, the Coordinator will give you an indication of how soon you can expect support to begin.

Once a Volunteer has been identified for you the Coordinator will arrange a ‘match’ visit where the Coordinator will introduce you to your Volunteer.

The Volunteer will then visit weekly, at a time to suit you both, for 2-3hrs, and they might support you with things like: going with you to groups or appointments, being an extra pair of hands to go out and about with your child/ren, help you find and access information or services, support you with parenting, and just be someone to talk to – someone who will listen in confidence.

During this time the Coordinator will visit you approximately every 3 months to complete a review, ensuring that support can adapt to any changing needs.