A total of 130 children from 67 different households were last year offered assistance through the Home-Start programme, a project run by Aġenzija Appoġġ.

In an annual report issued yesterday, outlining the work carried out by volunteers, the organisation said the programme offered assistance to those families lacking basic support.

The families that were offered assistance had children who were younger than five and who for some reason were struggling to maintain a normal daily life.

Sharing her experience in the report, one volunteer explained how she offered assistance to a family of four which lived in poor conditions that hindered the development of the two young girls.

“There was no tiling on the ground floor and the lack of cupboards available made it difficult to keep the place clean and tidy. The mother was finding it hard to organise the home,” the volunteer said.

The mother lacked skills to exercise appropriate discipline on her children

The mother also suffered from a hearing impairment and struggled with mental health issues and, while she cared for her daughters’ basic needs and kept all medical appointments, the volunteer noted that “she lacked skills to exercise appropriate discipline on her children”.

As a result, the older daughter had behavioural problems while the younger one was not developing at the same rate as other children her age.

After the family was assigned a second volunteer, who helped set up a playroom for the girls while also equipping the mother with the necessary skills to keep her home tidy, both girls started to change for the better.

“Next came organising storage space for the shoes and clothes which were strewn all over the place. Cardboard boxes served as drawers for clean clothes and shoes. The kitchen and fridge also got a good spring-cleaning so that the mother could prepare meals for the family together with the volunteers,” the volunteer said.

While the volunteers were still regularly visiting the family, they would soon be reducing the number of visits.

The programme also supports families when one of the members is battling an illness and who might not have anyone to help out.

Home-Start volunteers are parents themselves or people who have direct parenting experience. Each volunteer is selected, trained and supervised before being assigned a family.