Home-Start Guildford

Who we are

Who are we?

Home-Start Guildford is an independent charity supporting families with at least one child under the age of 5, living in Guildford Borough. We are part of Home-Start UK, one of the UK’s leading family support charities, benefitting from their policy framework and quality assurance, but not funding. 

Our culture and values

What do we do? 

We provide support to parents who are struggling to cope with a variety of challenging circumstances such as postnatal depression, isolation, family breakdown, domestic abuse or mental and physical health worries. This help comes in the form of trained volunteer support in the family’s home or at one of our Family Groups. Families with more complex needs benefit from working with our Family Support Worker, who is able to provide more focussed work with the family in their home. We recruit volunteers who attend a 6-week preparation course. Our two Coordinators deliver the structured course face-to-face as a way of sharing the Home-Start ethos and getting to know the volunteers who they will later match to the families. Our main referrers are the Health Visitors, the Family Centre, Mental Health Services and families can also self-refer. 

Equality, diversity and inclusion policy

Home-Start Guildford is committed to safer recruitment and equality of opportunity and diversity.

To help us achieve this, Home-Start has in place policies and procedures relating to staff and volunteers that are designed to uphold the rights enshrined in both 2010 Equality Act and 1998 Human Rights Act. Employees, trustees and other volunteers are therefore required to comply with all policies and procedures designed to ensure respect for equality and human rights. Home-Start ensures all its other policies and procedures comply with this policy.