The three Oxfordshire Home-Start charities are celebrating after being awarded £419,000 from the National Lottery Community Fund to support their work helping families with young children who are experiencing difficult times.
Home-Start Southern Oxfordshire, Home-Start Oxford and Home-Start Banbury, Bicester & Chipping Norton, will use the grant to fund a three-year project called SIDE-BY-SIDE: Parents supporting parents to create a better start for children.
Home-Start trains people to become home-visiting volunteers who are then matched with families who need support. Families may be struggling to cope with issues such as mental health, multiple births, family breakdown or isolation. A Home-Start home-visiting volunteer provides weekly peer support in the family’s home to help them in the ways they need. The project aims to improve wellbeing, help families to feel better able to cope with parenting in the earliest years and support children’s learning and development.
The Home-Start Oxfordshire charities believe that by offering early help when children are young, parents can build the skills, confidence and community connections that will have a lasting impact on relationships, happiness, child development and a family’s ability to thrive.
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National Lottery players raise over £30 million a week for good causes across the UK. Thanks to them, last year The National Lottery Community Fund was able to distribute over half a billion pounds (£615.4 million) of life-changing funding to communities. To find out more visit www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk