On Thursday 25th October, Home-Start Arun, Worthing & Adur attended the Sussex Life Awards finals evening at The Grand Hotel, Brighton. The family support charity had made it through to the final three in the ‘Services to the Community’ Award. At 9.30pm it was announced that they had won the category.
The award had been made following a Judge’s visit to see the charity’s work in action and a public vote. Home-Start supports families with young children going through tough times. The charity recruits and trains volunteers with 24/7 parenting experience who are then matched with a family needing support.
The charity supports families in their own homes, where parents are struggling with; mental health challenges, ill health, family breakdown or children with challenging behaviours. These challenges have a negative impact on the children as they can not receive the nurturing they require to develop alongside their peers.
Home-Start Manager, Bridget Richardson said, “Our families often don’t meet the tough criteria to receive a statutory service and without our volunteers they would be extremely isolated. Children
thrive when parents are able to engage with them and have a fun family life. Sadly, last year we couldn’t support 1 in 5 of the families who were referred to us due to lack of resources. We hope that this award will support our local fundraising to help more Sussex families.”
The Award comes at an important time for the local charity as they celebrate 18 years of service and need to build more fundraising channels to soften the end of the Lottery grant in 2019 and ensure the continuation of the vital service.
Pete Crowe, Chairman said, “This Award recognises the impactful work that our volunteers do with local families. We are thrilled! We hope that it will help to raise our profile across Sussex and
motivate people to raise funds for the service to continue beyond next year. The demand on our service is increasing monthly. We will be celebrating the Award for some time to come!”
If you would like to find out more about this unique family support service and or contribute to fundraising activities please go to www.home-startarun.org.uk or find them on Facebook.
