Do you need our support?

As a parent you might ask for Home-Start’s help for all sorts of reasons:

• • You may be feeling isolated in your community, have no family nearby and be struggling to make friends

• • You may be finding it hard to cope because of your own or your child’s illness

• • You may have been hit hard by the death of a loved one

• You may be really struggling with emotional and physical demands of having twins or triplets – perhaps born into an already large family.

Help is at hand. We support any family living in Trafford with a child of any age, or any family living in Salford or Wigan who have at least one child under the age of five and who maybe finding it hard to cope.

But what do we mean by ‘support’? If you ask for Home-Start’s help you can be sure of total confidentiality.  Almost 25% of families refer themselves, the remainder having requests made on their behalf e.g. by a health visitor.

After asking for our support you will meet with one of our local co-ordinators who will carefully match you with one of our volunteers. Our volunteers, who all have parenting experience and have been safely recruited, will visit you for a couple of hours a week and give you both emotional and practical help.

What do I do next?

• • Contact us on 0161 865 4222

• • Call into our office at Stretford Children’s Centre, 9 Poplar Road, Stretford, M32 9AN.

• • Email us at admin@hsts.org.uk

• • Talk to your health visitor or social worker, etc

• If you are a health visitor or social worker, etc and want to refer a family to Home-Start, please see the information below.

Salford referral form – please click here

Trafford – to self-refer please click here, or if you are a professional please complete an Early Help Assessment

Wigan – if you need Home-Start support in Wigan and Leigh, you need to be part of the Motiv8 project – click here to find out more about the Motiv8 project

In 2017, HSTSW started to offer its core service of home-visiting support to families living in Wigan, as part of Motiv8, a programme to improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in Greater Manchester.

Motiv8 is funded by the European Social Fund and the National Lottery, through the Big Lottery Fund and is led by social housing landlord New Charter Homes (part of the Jigsaw Group). Motiv8 works with people aged 25 and over who are not in employment or training and need help to get back on track to overcome issues such as homelessness, domestic-abuse, long-term unemployment, physical health, mental well-being or alcohol and drug dependency.

HSTSW is one of several specialist partners involved in Motiv8. We can provide support to any Motiv8 clients in the Wigan, Trafford and Salford areas who have a child aged up to the age of 18.  Using our core home-visiting work, we offer a range of practical and emotional support through a weekly visit from a trained volunteer to help raise confidence and increase coping ability.  See the video below: