Parent-to-parent service extended

A year after the launch of Home-Start Malta, the service whereby parents help parents in the Cottonera area, is being extended to Zabbar, Zejtun and Fgura to reach more families in need.

Seven families and 18 children are benefiting from the project, which engages eight volunteers. Eight were undergoing a preparatory course to strengthen the service, which has passed the test of the first year, Home-Start management committee chairman Catherine Fleri Soler said.

The volunteers would be sensitively matched with a family - and if they had nothing in common, they would not be used until the ideal match was found, she explained.

Ms Fleri Soler was speaking at the presentation of the first annual report at the Appogg agency in Guardamangia in the presence of Home-Start founder Margaret Harrison.

The whole point of the project is that volunteers are not professionals, but parents. They offer support, friendship and practical assistance in coping with ill health, disability, poverty and other financial and social problems, including loneliness and depression, to families with at least one child under five.

An important aspect of the service is that it is not imposed, or intrusive. Families did not feel they were being "checked out" and were seeking it, word of mouth being a contributing factor to its success, Ms Fleri Soler added.

"It is just a means to help parents be good mums and dads," she stressed.

Home-Start originated in the UK in 1973 and, since then, over 330 schemes have developed. Growing interest in the service led to the development of Home-Start International, with over 100 schemes in about 20 countries.

Ms Harrison attributed the success of the programme primarily to its simplicity. Recounting what inspired her to get it going, she said she realised parents were happy to open up to other parents where she worked in a drop-in centre as a young mother in Leicester. They wanted her to visit them at home and establish a parent-to-parent relationship. And the rest is history.

Home-Start is based on three Ps: Parenting, preventing breakdown and partnership.

As opposed to professionals, parents have time, are flexible, can be themselves and even get emotionally involved, Ms Harrison said. However, Home-Start also has a structure and the strong backing of professionals, who want the volunteers there. It is based on humanity, humility and humour, she said.

The CEO of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services, Joe Gerada described Home-Start as the "innovative" community programme of the year, having the necessary ingredients for a success story. Apart from being simple, it was based in the community, driven by real needs and inexpensive.

The Malta project, he said, had organised itself in an interesting way, bringing together the government, the private sector and volunteers and creating a model for other projects.

The project is being supported by Vodafone Malta Foundation and HSBC Cares for Children's Fund, whose chairmen, Gemma Mifsud Bonnici and Kate Gonzi respectively, were present and expressed their continuing commitment to the noble cause.

Appogg is encouraging volunteers to join Home-Start Malta. It is also urging families who feel they can benefit from the service to approach the agency.

For more information, contact Jacqueline Vella on 2167 8043/9901 8398 or send an e-mail to home.start@maltanet.net

www.appogg.gov.mt