Home Based Help

This is our core service, providing practical and accessible support to families in their own homes, by qualified and experienced staff and trained volunteers. All support is tailor-made to individual families needs and aims to provide positive outcomes for the children and the whole family.

The majority of our work is at an Early Help level, where there is emerging need.   Most of our support is provided by volunteers and therefore, our focus is prevention as we are not a crisis service.  Our staff and volunteers are trained, but are not able to support very complex families, unless in a specific, clearly defined way.

We can support families in the four following areas:

  • Practical support inside and outside the home (decluttering, support with implementing cleaning routines, form-filling, organising appointments, accompanying parents to take children out e.g. to go shopping, attend appointments, take children to the park or a play centre);
  • Volunteer befriending (emotional support and a listening ear for parents);
  • Parenting skills (positive parenting, boundaries, choices/consequences, managing difficult feelings, healthier lifestyle etc). This is usually time-limited and delivered by a Family Support Worker;
  • Helping families/children have a voice (liaising with professionals, one-to-one direct work with children) This is usually time-limited and delivered by a Family Support Worker.

Support is normally delivered by either a trained volunteer or a Family Support Worker and mainly consists of a weekly home visit lasting around 2 hours a week.

We do not offer respite/childcare or offer direct support with children’s challenging behaviour (our parenting support is geared towards empowering parents to use effective strategies to manage it), and our staff and volunteers do not have specific expertise in supporting children who refuse to attend school or with diagnosed or suspected autism/ADHD/SEN.

 

To make a referral please complete a CFS Family Support Referral Form Leaflets & Forms. Please note, for self referrals, we are more than happy for you to call the main CFS office, or the relevant Family Support Practitioner (see our “Who We are/The Team” section for contact details), and they will take all the necessary referral information from you.