Practical support for parents

[marley2580]

So I've had this idea for a charity and I thought I'd see what people thought. I was thinking of setting up a charity that would use volunteers to offer practical support to parents. It would be open to any parent that felt they needed it and would offer all sorts of practical support to them. Some examples I thought of would be:
- A working mum that needs help with finding the time to make nutritional and healthy meals for her family
- A young mum that is feeling overwhelmed by housework
- a new mum needing help with breast/bottle feeding
- a single dad needs some help with disciplining his children
- a parent is having difficulty with some sibling rivalry

The volunteers would go to the parent's house and help them to come up with solutions that work for their family. So if the problem was not knowing how to cook, the volunteer could teach the parent some key skills and show them a few recipes. The same with cleaning problems. With parenting difficulties the volunteers would be trained in the various parenting theories and they would help the parent to find one that suits them. It's kind of a befriending relationship. I think it might appeal to older people that have loads of household management and parenting skills,

So what do people think? Would you use it? Volunteer? Do you think it's great or crap? Do you think I've missed something? Or that it won't work?

Any and all feedback would be appreciated.

 

[xlouloux]

I really like the idea! I'm not a parent but I would happily volunteer my time to something like that, I have cleaning and cooking skills that I would love to use to help someone out.

I think one problem would be that people might struggle to admit that they need help, you definitely have to find a right way to go about it, nobody wants to feel like a charity case.

I think if you worked on the idea you could really do something with it! x

 

[rosie272]

I think it's a brilliant idea! There is a similar organisation here in Glasgow called 'geezabreak' (translation for non Scots: give us a break ) They offer all sorts of services including respite for struggling parents - they do overnight respite and can also just go to someone's home for a few hours here and there to help out with a new baby or take new mums to the shops or whatever!

They have an after school club where older kids are taught some basic life skills (it is sad the amount of teenagers who can't do the most basic of tasks like boiling eggs or ironing clothes!) and they have meetings with teenagers to chat about anything and everything they might not be able to chat about at home. They deal with a broad range of people and are an amazing organisation - I was about to start volunteering for them when I found out I was pregnant - by the time I got a disclosure check done I had Charlie and never had the time to do it. But yeah, it is definitely something I would consider again - invaluble for some people

https://www.geezabreak.org.uk/services/service.php?ID=1

 

[freckleonear]

Sounds similar to Home Start. It's a nice idea but it could be difficult to get volunteers with the appropriate knowledge and experience, particularly for more specialised areas like breastfeeding. It might be easier to concentrate on one specific area to complement all the other similar services available. Personally I love the cooking idea, and I don't think there's anything like that already.

 

[omfgski]

.

 

[nugget80]

We have home start here which does pretty much the same kinda thing...

 

[Nibblenic]

It does sound similar to homestart. My local homestart had to be bailed out by the national lottery a little while ago to prevent closure.

Have you got any plans as to where to find your funding?

 

[marley2580]

It maybe does sound similar to homestart, though it wouldn't be only offered to parents with kids under 5. It would also be offered to carers of children such as grandparents with custody and foster carers. I want to keep it quite general rather than specialising, as there's a lot of specialised things out there such as breastfeeding etc. The volunteers would be trained in the basics and, more importantly, they would know where to find more specialised help. So, for example, if a mum was having difficulties with BF they could offer moral support and fetch her a drink etc and then they could help her to find a BF expert type to contact, they could also be there when she meets with the expert in order to learn how to support and encourage the mother.

I think it needs more work, but I'm liking this idea. Just need to figure out how to make it more different from homestart lol