NATIONAL NETWORK

All Home-Start regions are linked to Home-Start UK by a national agreement to which all schemes must comply. This national support charity helps parents to build better lives for their children. Reach out to the family and you will reach the child.

It was founded in 1973 by Margaret Harrison, a voluntary worker in the Leicester children’s department who was convinced that as well as support for individual children their families required intensive help.

Margaret was determined that volunteers should be pro-active in promoting parents as ‘sustaining agents’ in the lives of children and the family home as the ‘sustaining background’. When Home-Start Leicester was started, the name reflected the fact that the service was based in the home at the start of the child’s life.

By now, there are more than 300 local Home-Starts around the UK, supporting nearly 35,000 families per year, thanks to the efforts of around 16,000 volunteers. Home-Start has become international. It operates in 22 countries across five continents.