Get Support
Holistic Home-Centred Heart Led
Early Years Focused
Peer to Peer Relational Support
Being a parent has never been easy. It can be lonely, frustrating, heart breaking, exhausting and over-whelming.
Life-changing events can happen to anyone.
We all need a little help and support sometimes.
Home-Start Dudley is here to support families through the tough times, the trying times, the tears and tantrums.
There is no ‘typical’ Home-Start family: families come in all shapes and sizes. Whatever your family looks like and wherever you live in the borough, we’re here for you.
Any Dudley borough family with a child under five can receive
Home-Start support. Our support is free, friendly and family focused.
Starting in the home, our approach is as individual as the people we’re helping. No judgement, just compassionate, confidential help and expert support.
We listen to what families tell us they need, build on their strengths and respect their choices. We’re here to help parents be the parent they want to be, to help them give their children the best possible start in life and to have a positive and healthy future.
Holistic
Focused on the needs of the whole family
Home-centred
It starts with the family home and family life
Heart-Led
Trusted relationships, compassion and kindness at the core
Getting Help
We’re here to help with whatever issues a family are dealing with, big or small. No matter what they are, we’ll do our best to help.
We know how tough parenting can be and the difference the right support just when a family needs it can make.
Home-Start Dudley takes support directly to families in the places where families live day to day family life – their homes and their communities.
Our trained volunteers, alongside our dedicated, experienced staff, provide regular practical and emotional support for families to help with the stresses and strains of family life, particularly during those crucial but demanding early years. With a little time, a little love and a little effort the hard things become easier and parents and children go on to flourish and thrive.
We believe in empowering parents so they feel more confident in their parenting role, better able to cope and better able to enjoy family life.
I’m a Parent
You are not alone.
All parents struggle at one time or another.
Home-Start Dudley is here to help.
How to get support
If you live in Dudley Borough and have at least one child under 5 years old or are pregnant, we may be able to help you.
Our support is completely free, non-judgemental and confidential.
If you feel you could do with some extra support with parenting, to help you cope with additional issues, problems or pressures you’re dealing with or to support your mental health, you can request Home-Start support.
To request support yourself, you can send us a message using the Contact Us page, email us directly at
admin@home-startdudley.org.uk
or call us on 01384 482733
whichever is easiest for you.
Please tell us your first name, a few words about the help you need and how to contact you.
Or you can ask someone else to refer you. This can be anyone working with your family e.g., your Health Visitor, GP, midwife, children’s school or nursery, Family Support Worker, counsellor, mental health practitioner or a support worker.
When you contact us about getting support, we’ll give you a call to have a chat with you about the help you might need and the support we may be able to offer.
If someone else refers you, we’ll let them know we’ve received the referral and we’ll phone you to let you know they’ve referred you to Home-Start Dudley. We’ll have a chat with you about the help you might need and the type of support we may be able to offer.
How does Home-Start support work?
If we think we’re able to help you, we will arrange an initial phone call/visit with your family to talk more about the help you’d like and the kind of support Home-Start could offer.
We want to understand the kind of help you need and how you’d like Home-Start to help you and your family so that we can find the best way to support you.
If you decide you’d like Home-Start support and we think we can help you, we’ll carefully match you with one of our volunteers.
Our volunteers provide supportive visits to families, offering a mix of practical and emotional help and support.
Your Home-Start volunteer will bring support to you: they can visit you at home, phone you and video chat. As part of the one-to-one support they give you, your volunteer may also be able to help you to ‘get out and about’ or meet up with you locally.
The same volunteer will visit/contact you regularly, usually weekly for up to 2 hours.
Home-Start volunteers can offer parenting support, help with children’s learning and development, emotional support and practical help. Your volunteer’s help will be based around the needs and type of support we’ve discussed and agreed with you.
Parenting young children can be challenging.
Many of the parents we support are struggling with the demands of having young children.
They are often facing additional pressures including:
- Feeling lonely/isolated
- Coping with mental and emotional health and wellbeing
- Not having support from friends and family close-by
- Lone parenting
- Co-parenting
- Managing children’s behaviour
- Concerns around children’s wellbeing, learning and development
- Multiple births (twins/triplets)
- Parenting several children under 5 years old
- Struggling with the demands of having young children
- Managing family routines
- Physical or mental health issues (parents/children)
- Perinatal mental health/postnatal depression
- Ill health or disability (parents/children)
- Additional needs (parents/children)
- Relationship problems
- Domestic abuse
- Bereavement
- Money worries
- Accessing services
- Being new to the area or to the UK.
Our volunteers typically have parenting, childcare or family support experience: it’s important to us that families are supported by someone who understands what it’s like to be a parent and what’s involved in bringing up young children.
All our volunteers are:
• Fully trained by us
• Enhanced DBS checked
• Reference checked
I’m a Professional
Refer a family for Home-Start support.
We value working with you
to support families.
How to refer a family
Our relationship with our referrers is important to us.
We appreciate your role in helping families learn about and access Home-Start support.
If you think we may be able to help a family, please complete and submit our referral form and we will see if we can help.
Our support for families is free, confidential and non-jugemental.
Download a referral form on our website.
You’ll find it below this section.
Return your referral form by
email: admin@home-startdudley.org.uk
or post:
Home-Start Dudley, 10-12 Charter Street, Brierley Hill, West Midlands, DY5 1LA
Referral Criteria
We accept referrals for families who:
- live in Dudley Borough
- have a at least one child under 5 years of age
- are experiencing challenges or difficulties and feel in need of extra support
- have given their consent to be referred to Home-Start – please discuss Home-Start with the family before referring them.
We can support families at all levels of intervention: Universal, Early Help, Child in Need and Child Protection.
What we can help with
We know that family life can be stressful at times: families can face many and multiple challenges.
You are welcome to make a referral to Home-Start if you feel a family you are working with or supporting could do with some extra support with:
- any aspect of parenting, children’s wellbeing and development
- their mental or physical health and wellbeing
- to cope with additional issues, problems or pressures they’re dealing with
You can refer a family for support with one or more than one issue or need.
We provide support for various issues a family may be dealing with including:
- Loneliness and isolation
- Lone parenting
- Co-parenting
- Managing children’s behaviour
- Children’s wellbeing, learning and development
- Multiple births (twins/triplets)
- Parenting several children under 5 years old
- Struggling with the demands of having young children or with family routines
- Physical or mental health issues (parents/children)
- Perinatal mental health/post-natal depression
- Ill health or disability (parents/children)
- Additional needs (parents/children)
- Relationship problems
- Domestic abuse
- Bereavement
- Money worries
- Being new to the area or to the UK.
If you have a question about Home-Start support or the referral process you’d like to ask before referring a family, you’re welcome to give us a call 01384 482733, send us a message using our Contact Us page or email us.
What happens after I refer a family?
To discuss referrals or if you have any questions about the referral process, please email admin@home-startdudley.org.uk or call us on 01384 482733 / 07809 702700.
Once we receive your referral we will:
- Contact you to acknowledge the referral
- Advise you of current support capacity and anticipated time-scales for support (We don’t operate a waiting list.
Support capacity is related to volunteer availability and suitability. Our service is often in high demand and this may mean we cannot provide support immediately). - Contact the family (parent named on the referral) to let them know we’ve received your referral
If we are able to offer support, we will:
- Contact the family to tell them about our service and arrange an initial needs assessment
- Discuss support needs and how Home-Start may be able to help with the family
If we are able to help and the family choose to have Home-Start support, we will:
- Agree with the family how Home-Start is going to help and support them
- Monitor, assess and review their support throughout their time with Home-Start Dudley
Where families receive our core Home-Start service of supportive visits from trained volunteers:
- Carefully match the skills and experience of a fully trained volunteer to the needs of the family
- Introduce the volunteer to the family
Our contact with you as the referrer – we will:
- Let you know we’ve received the referral
- Let you know the outcome of the referral
- Keep you updated at all stages of our involvement with the family
- Keep you informed about progress as appropriate
If you’re a professional working with a family you feel would benefit from Home-Start support, you can make a referral with their consent. You can download a Referral Form below. Note you will need a PDF reader installed on your computer to read this file. Or we can send you a referral form.
What our families say…
I’m so grateful we had Home-Start in our lives. We wouldn’t be where we are now if it wasn’t for your support and kindness. Home-Start have made such a huge difference in our lives. I’ll never forget everything you’ve done for us.
Home-Start support has been invaluable to me and my little boy, not only physically and practically but emotionally too.
It has been very healing for me during one of the hardest times of my life. I genuinely look forward to seeing Home-Start every week and so does my little boy.
