Home-Start Newcastle Borough  (HSNB) is an independently registered charity established over 24 years ago.  Our service supports families through a range of activities and services, suited to the varying needs of each individual family.

We offer a professional one to one service to any family or parent who is experiencing difficulties with a wide range of concerns. Delivered in the family home or via telephone support, we empower families to reach their full potential by offering practical and emotional support, designed to meet the needs of families with children aged 0-19 years of age.

Our aim is to create thriving family units by supporting families to build resilience, with the needs of children at the core of all the work we undertake.

We offer support with:

• parents and children’s emotional health and wellbeing
• parenting skills and strategies to help implement rules and boundaries and manage children’s behaviours
• access to local services and increase community participation
• support families with housing and financial issues
• returning to employment or education
• reduce parental isolation and help increase confidence and self esteem
• support and guidance on your child's development and provide information and access to education and getting ready for school

Families can access support though 1 or more of the following services:

Parent2parent volunteer home visiting

Volunteers are carefully matched with a family based on family needs and volunteer skills. We provide practical and emotional support within families own homes. Visiting for 2-3 hours a week, a volunteer can support parents and children with a variety of needs, for example: support to access the local services and the wider community, support parents with parenting skills and routines and behaviours, support parents to understand children’s learning and development, or provide a listening ear

Time4you telephone befriending

Face to face support isn’t for everyone, and at times, parents just need a little additional, short term support to work through concerns and issues they are presented with. Volunteers offer weekly phone calls to parents lasting from anything up to an hour. Parenting can be hard and sometimes we all just need a listening ear and someone to talk to. Volunteers will offer information support and advice with concerns around parenting skills and routines, family life, promoting positive wellbeing, signposting to local services and just allowing parents time to talk.

Home-Start Together

Our stay and play community group session held at Maryhill Children’s Centre on Thursday afternoon for parents and children 0-4yrs. Home-start Together is a fun session for parents and children to learn how to interact and engage with each other, meet other parents, join in with sing and sign and get crafting. We offer refreshments for parents and children and there will be access to weekly early years advice and support.

Proactive home visits

We also carry out Proactive Home Visits – this is an initiative that was introduced by Staffordshire County Council to provide families with up to date information, advice and guidance about services available in their local community to support the needs of their young family. We visit families with children under the age of 2 and we provide them with a detailed pack of information and offer advice and guidance on about activities, services and facilities in the local area.

Think2

We can assist families' with accessing free childcare under the government funded Think2 initiative. We can help families to apply for 15 hours free childcare and help identify suitable settings to send the children if they are eligible.

Book start

Home-Start Newcastle Borough also offers BookStart sessions to families. These are delivered in the family home with our dedicated Book start worker. The sessions promote reading and nursery rhyme activities with you and your child. We gift those accessing the service Book start resources for the  families to keep

Tier 2 Earliest Help Family Support

Please note that as of April 1st 2022 this Tier 2 Family Support Outreach Service on behalf of Staffordshire County Council will be delivered by an alternative provider. 

Family support workers visit families in their own homes or at other suitable venues. Initially we will carry out and Early Help Assessment (EHA) which helps us to get to know the family and identify what their strengths are, but also the areas where they might need more help and support. We work with the family to create a family plan and identify the goals that they want to achieve. Working with other support networks and agencies, we take a whole family approach and aim to improve outcomes for families. Support can range from 12 weeks up to 6 months