About
Befriending. Trained volunteers work 1:1 with families in their own home or within the community. Volunteers provide friendship and encouragement to families so they can achieve their own aspirations for themselves and their children. The volunteers provide role modelling to promote positive parenting. Volunteers visit their matched family once a week for around 2 hours and matches last anything between 6 weeks to 6 months or more.
About Home-Start Basingstoke & Deane
Home-Start is a charity that helps families where there is a child under five living in the household. We support families who are struggling to cope, for a multitude of reasons such as physical and mental illness, bereavement, domestic violence and multi-births.
We provide one-to-one support for parents by recruiting and training volunteers who offer support in the family home for a couple of hours every week. Each family is given a tailor made package offering them a mixture of practical help, emotional support and guidance plus advice about parenting issues.
The support is usually undertaken in the safety of their own homes but also through our groups. Volunteers are committed and will continue visiting the family until the youngest child turns five or starts school, or until the parents feel they can stand on their own two feet.
Parents and volunteers often develop a deeply trusting relationship which can lead to powerful change within the family and really do make a difference to local families li
Last updated: 14/08/2025