Home-Start Merton have been selected as one of 8 Home-Start schemes in England to pilot an exciting new project!

 

Early Learning Partnership Project (ELPP)

The DfES has provided funding for a project involving a consortium of voluntary sector organisations led by the National Family and Parenting Institute to demonstrate different approaches to involving parents in their children's early learning. Home-Start is one of the lead agencies involved in this new project, others include Barnardos, ContinYou, Coram Family, FWA, NCH and Pre-School Learning Alliance. The DfES acknowledges that parental involvement in children's early learning has the potential to improve outcomes for children in all 5 areas of Every Child Matters - be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic well being.

Evidence shows that where parents have aspirations for their children and can spend time with them talking, listening, reading and playing, it has a positive impact on their development and future education. Home-Start can play a key role in supporting parents to do this even if parents may not appreciate how important their role is or face difficulties which make it hard for them to get involved e.g. like poor housing, poverty, illness or family problems. This project aims to give a helping hand so that parents do not see their children lose out educationally.

The Early Learning Partnership Project (ELPP) aims to support parents of children aged 1-3 whose children may be at risk of learning delay. The project seeks to find successful ways to support them to make the most of their children's curiosity and appetite for learning during these first three crucial years. It also aims to support parents to become more aware of and able to access mainstream children's services.

Home-Start as one of the lead partner agencies in this new project, will be working alongside their specially chosen delivery partners One Plus One and Bookstart in 8 Home-Start schemes - 4 Schemes in London and 4 schemes in Worcestershire. We are delighted to announce that Home-Start Merton have been selected as one of the London schemes along with Croydon, Camden and Westminster. The pilot project will run until March 2008.

So what will Home-Start Merton be doing?

Our overarching aim is and always has been to work alongside parents in a non-threatening, supportive way in order to help them to give their children the best possible start in life. This has not changed. Part of what Home-Start does already includes listening to parents and gently suggesting ways of overcoming difficulties or providing information when asked for. Volunteers often help with the children - providing them with stimulating play opportunities, reading, talking and listening. This can encourage parents to get involved and do the same. Volunteers might encourage parents to join and access local facilities such as the local Children's Centre.

Often we take all this valuable work for granted - we know that what we do works for families because families tell us how much their volunteer has made a positive difference to them and their children. We hope that this project will help us to demonstrate this effectiveness and enable volunteers to reflect upon what they actually do to support families about what works and why.

Volunteers taking part in this project have all received 3 additional training modules to enhance their awareness and skills in this area.

By the end of the project Home-Start hopes to show that through the support and involvement of a volunteer:-

Referrers who feel they have families who would benefit from this project will be asked to complete (in addition to our standard referral form) a supplementary sheet which will assist us to gather our baseline data and for monitoring purposes, for all families taking part in the project. Please contact the office for further details.