The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-12898, in the name of Bob Doris, on celebrating the work of Home-Start in north Glasgow and across Scotland. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
I ask people leaving the public gallery to do so quietly as the Parliament is still in session.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament commends the charity, Home-Start, on its work with families across Glasgow and Scotland who are going through difficult times; understands that it does this by promoting resilience and confidence and by providing advice and support that enables families to cope better and successfully move on; congratulates the charity on, it understands, helping more than 2,000 families and around 4,000 children in Scotland; acknowledges that it is a UK-wide organisation and tailors each of its 32 Scottish locations to meet the specific needs of each community that it serves; recognises its work in its new priority areas in Glasgow, such as in the north of the city, that has allowed vulnerable families to get support; understands that, over the last year, it has successfully helped 108 families in north Glasgow; considers that, despite its limited funding, it has made excellent progress in offering aid to young and struggling families, and hopes that Home-Start is successful in its aim to continue to bring about positive social change in Scotland’s communities.
12:33
I thank parliamentary colleagues across the chamber who signed my motion, which highlights the excellent work of Home-Start across Scotland and, of course, the work of Home-Start Glasgow North in particular.
I welcome to the Parliament representatives of Home-Start, including many of the volunteers and staff who work with the families who have benefited from the support offered by the team at Home-Start Glasgow North. It is inspirational to see the drive and the commitment that exist among everyone who is involved with the organisation. I pay tribute also to the work of Nikki O’Hara and Frances Goldman in helping to create such a nurturing and supportive environment at Home-Start Glasgow North for staff, volunteers and families alike. I hope that members will be able to join our visitors to the Parliament for an informal gathering directly after this debate.
In the past year, Home-Start Glasgow North has helped 108 families and provided volunteer-led support for many families and for communities such as Maryhill, Possilpark and others right across the north of the city. That is a 63 per cent increase in just one year in the number of families who have been supported, and I am pleased that increased funding has allowed Home-Start to recruit and train more staff and volunteers to support my vulnerable constituents. It is, however, worth noting that, despite increased funds, Home-Start still has a significant waiting list for vulnerable families requiring assistance—I might say a little more about funding towards the end of my speech.
One of the strengths of Home-Start is that, because volunteers are not viewed as a statutory service, they often find it easier to build up trust and friendship with families. However, Home-Start receives referrals from statutory services, including health visitors, social work and the one Glasgow joint support teams. Such referrals are increasing, as are self-referrals to the service.
The families who are referred face a number of challenges. The figures for the past year show that 36 per cent of the children faced behavioural challenges; 34 per cent had developmental issues; and other challenges include a number of physical and mental health issues. However, the most compelling fact is that 67 per cent of families felt socially isolated. We know that all of those challenges put children’s wellbeing at risk; for example, the Scottish Government’s “Growing Up in Scotland” report states:
“By age four, children who experienced prolonged (repeated) exposure to a mother with mental health problems were particularly likely to have poor behavioural, emotional and social outcomes.”
I believe that the mental health of every single MSP in this chamber needs to be nurtured every bit as much as our physical health, and we are not in ourselves any more resilient with regard to mental health issues than anyone else in society. However, it is the impact of poverty and deprivation on many of the families and communities I represent that causes the significant health inequalities that I have referred to. It is that poverty and that deprivation that leads to that 67 per cent figure for social isolation.
That said, this has to be a positive debate, because Home-Start Glasgow North helps fantastic families develop their resilience. An important aspect is its volunteer home-visiting service, which, crucially, offers practical and emotional support to struggling families. In that way, Home-Start respects each family’s dignity and identity and can respond to individual needs. This is about giving families choice and matching the right volunteer with the right family, and building trust, lending a listening ear and being non-judgmental are core to offering that vital support. Working together builds confidence, strengthens relationships and allows people to have fun, all to the children’s ultimate benefit.
Likewise, Home-Start’s family support group helps families to grow in confidence and overcome the social isolation that I have referred to. Caroline, the family support group worker, organises a variety of fun-filled programmes that can include baby massage, dental healthcare, baking and even traditional Scottish lullabies. Perhaps we will get some of that at the reception after the debate.
I am also pleased that Home-Start is co-ordinating peer support during the perinatal period from pregnancy through to the age of one, as that is particularly vital for women with poor perinatal mental health. It is also responding specifically to the local community’s needs by developing, among other things, sing and grow music therapy courses, which are important in boosting the development of parent-child attachment. Moreover, it is working alongside education services such as homework clubs for kinship carers.
I regret that I am unable to stay for the whole debate, but I am sure that Bob Doris will also acknowledge the work of Home-Start in the south of Glasgow and, indeed, far beyond. What, in carers week, can we do to recognise not only the importance of that work but the fact that it is under profound financial pressure? How can we across the Parliament restore the valuing of the voluntary sector and these people who are so committed to making a difference to young people’s lives?
I am very aware of the good work that Home-Start does in Glasgow south, which I know that some of my colleagues will mention in the debate. I will talk about financial pressures towards the end of my speech. I hope that the member will be able to stay for that and hear my answer to her question.
The Carers (Scotland) Bill offers a route to improve the situation for many families. I have spoken to the Home-Start Glasgow North team, so I know that the support offered can be as rewarding for staff and volunteers as it is for the families who benefit from the services.
I will now talk about funding. Home-Start Glasgow North is one of only two Home-Starts in Scotland with no statutory core funding. It depends on lottery funding, as well as funds from organisations such as the Robertson Trust and Lloyds TSB.
I am pleased that the Scottish Government has supported Home-Start Glasgow North through the early years change fund. I recognise the financial challenges in the public sector, but Glasgow City Council does not allow organisations such as Home-Start Glasgow North to bid for funding from the integrated grant fund. That is just plain wrong. When the next funding round for the IGF opens in 2017, I hope that whoever is running Glasgow City Council will remove that unfair barrier. Given that Home-Start Glasgow North achieved 97 per cent in its recent quality assurance review, confirming the high standards throughout its working practices, surely that barrier should be lifted.
Today is about the staff and the volunteers at Home-Start Glasgow North and across Scotland. I look forward to joining Home-Start Glasgow North celebrate its 15th birthday next year. I thank them all—staff and volunteers alike—for all that they do to make the communities that I represent a better place to live and, for children, a better place to grow up.
I pay tribute to all Home-Start Glasgow North’s successes over the years. I know that it will go from strength to strength in the years ahead. I look forward to supporting staff, volunteers and families on that journey.
Due to the number of members who want to speak in the debate, I am minded to accept a motion under rule 8.14.3 of standing orders that the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes.
Motion moved,
That, under Rule 8.14.3, the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes.—[Bob Doris.]
Motion agreed to.
Even with that extension, the debate will be quite tight, so I ask members to keep to their four minutes if possible, please.
12:42
Presiding Officer, before I begin my speech, I apologise to you and to the chamber. I will not be able to stay for the entire debate as I have constituency visitors here.
I also apologise to any Home-Start staff, clients or volunteers from my constituency. For the same reason, I do not think that I will be able to join them for the reception that I now understand will follow the debate. It is a disappointment to me that I will not have the opportunity to speak to folk from my constituency who are here, so I will today make arrangements to do so in the constituency in the near future.
Today’s world can be frightening; it can appear hostile, as everyone seems to go at 100 miles per hour. There are so many challenges to be faced in everyday life: how to find a job or how to keep it; how to navigate through an increasingly complex and often unfair benefits system; and the challenge of ill health or a person not having a house that fits their family’s needs. The list is endless. The pressure and the feeling of isolation too often take their toll on families. Sometimes, the opportunity to talk through those problems and to have someone who will not judge but who can offer some support or suggest another way of looking at things can make a difference to families. That is where Home-Start comes in.
I say that that is where Home-Start comes in but, of course, a Home-Start volunteer does not just appear; rather, they must all be trained before being carefully matched with individual families. At the end of the day, the relationship is based on choice. It is the same for the support that Home-Start offers—whether that is working in family groups as we have heard, or supporting families individually, Home-Start tries to ensure that its approach is right for that particular family.
Over the years, I have spoken to families right across Maryhill and Springburn who have worked with Home-Start. They have unfailingly praised the organisation and have talked, often movingly, about the difference that it has made to their family. The one word that has always come up is a small but important one: that is, quite simply, “fun”. Every single person or family group whom I have spoken to has suggested that being part of Home-Start’s work has been a very fun experience for them. That is important, because a family that can laugh together and enjoy one another’s company will find it much easier to weather the storms that blow us all off course from time to time.
Last week was volunteers week. I pay a special tribute to the Home-Start volunteers. They are well trained and supported by the organisation’s staff but, even so, it is not always easy to make the right connection with a family or to support it to establish its own priorities. However, that is what Home-Start volunteers do day in, day out with great integrity and respect. They deserve our grateful thanks for that.
I had not planned to talk about funding, because I wanted to talk more about Home-Start as an organisation. However, my understanding—I may be wrong—is that Home-Start wants to be considered for the integrated grant funding that the local authority provides, but the local authority has decided that it will award that money in a three-year rolling programme. I can understand that Home-Start might see that as a route to funding that is closed to it, but I sincerely hope that, by working with the elected members, the issue will be resolved at least for future funding rounds.
I agree that this debate is not about funding and I am glad that we agree on future funding opportunities. My understanding is that the current integrated grant fund is a closed one, that only those who already had cash were allowed to apply to the current fund, and that those are the current guidelines. However, I welcome Ms Ferguson’s support for changing Glasgow City Council’s regulations on that.
Obviously, that is a matter for Glasgow City Council, and Home-Start has to engage with it on that. Given that we have all many times over the years suggested in the chamber that there needs to be more stable funding and more guaranteed funding for voluntary organisations, we have to allow the local authority to look at the matter and work with the organisations in its area to come up with the best possible opportunity.
As I said earlier, I hope that, by working with elected members, the issue will be resolved, at least for future funding rounds. I am certainly happy to play my part in trying to make that happen.
There is one slightly discordant note in the motion that I perhaps do not agree with—I say this slightly with my tongue in my cheek. The motion ends by saying that the Parliament
“hopes that Home-Start is successful in its aim to continue to bring about positive social change in Scotland’s communities.”
I am slightly more optimistic than that. I am absolutely sure that Home-Start will be successful and that it will continue to be
“successful in its aim to continue to bring about positive social change in Scotland’s communities.”
It has done so for nearly 15 years, and I see no reason why that is going to change.
I allowed the member to run over slightly because of the intervention. I would appreciate speeches of four minutes, please.
12:48
I thank my colleague Bob Doris for bringing this debate to the chamber, and I welcome those from Home-Start who have travelled from across the country to hear this debate, including Gillian Leslie, who is the development manager at Home-Start Glasgow South. I hope that she managed to get here. I intend to wax lyrical about Home-Start Glasgow South.
Parenting is not always easy. Sometimes it feels like it is the hardest thing in the world to do and that the one-size-fits-all approach to it just does not work. That is where Home-Start comes in. It helps folks not only with the issues that always cause stress and anxiety for parents and children—such as illness, disability, bereavement and loneliness—but with other, more individual problems that many parents face. That help ranges from helping teenage mothers with access to education and helping single fathers with access to rights, to helping people who are affected by poverty, abuse, violence or social isolation who may also need additional support to give their children the best start in life.
Some 258 families with 550 children are supported by Home-Start Glasgow South. The most crucial part of its work is what it does to support vulnerable families in their homes. Volunteers with parenting experience visit once a week to offer emotional and practical support in a way that is informal, confidential and, crucially, non-judgmental, as has already been said.
When I have met people who have been helped by the service, the fact that volunteers are non-judgmental has come up time and again as being of the utmost importance. A crucial aspect of Home-Start’s work is that the volunteer who people turn to for support is generally also a parent or someone who has had parenting experience. That qualification is necessary to be considered as a Home-Start volunteer. It is a cornerstone of Home-Start’s work because it means that parents are sharing their fears with people who understand how tough—and rewarding—being a parent can be. When people try to do the best for their children it can lead to insecurities and a feeling that they are failing. I am sure that that is a feeling to which all parents can relate.
The Glasgow south branch of Home-Start is the biggest in Scotland. I was delighted that the Minister for Children and Young People accepted my invitation to see first-hand the work that the branch is doing, with its great complement of dedicated, committed staff and volunteers, led by their brilliant, passionate manager, Colette Boyle. At that visit, the minister met some of the volunteers and parents who have been helped by the service. Like the other 32 Home-Starts throughout the country, Home-Start Glasgow south is an autonomous body with its own charitable status. However, it still has the same central tenet as other Home-Starts throughout the country, which is that children need a safe and happy environment in which to grow and develop.
The minister heard for herself the case of a young woman who felt that the service enabled her to see that the situation in which she found herself, in which she had lost control of her children, was not of her making. She had been concerned that she would end up going the same way as other members of her extended family and that she would be unable to create the future for her children that she desired. Home-Start helped her to realise that the situation was due to circumstances outside her control.
Since interacting with Home-Start, that incredibly impressive young woman is in control of her circumstances, her children and her future. She began to volunteer with Home-Start and is now in regular employment. That is the reality of what Home-Start can do. With its support, its clients can improve their immediate situation. Probably more important, though, Home-Start can help parents to build their confidence and take control of their lives, which benefits both them and their families.
I have great delight in commending to the chamber the work of Home-Start throughout Scotland, but particularly the branch in Glasgow south. It is a great organisation that supports many people throughout Glasgow south to ensure that they give their children the best start in life. I wish it and all those who work for, volunteer for and benefit from Home-Start throughout the country every success in future.
12:52
I thank Bob Doris for bringing such an important motion to the chamber. I thank also all those who do such fantastic work with Home-Start in my region of Mid Scotland and Fife. I am well aware of the extremely high regard in which Home-Start is held.
As the motion rightly points out, Home-Start supports some 2,000 families and 4,000 young children throughout Scotland, with a team of around 1,000 volunteers. Throughout the United Kingdom, Home-Start operates in about 300 towns, cities and rural communities, including in my patch, the city of Perth. Home-Start there was formed in 1984 and now supports around 150 families a year.
One of the most important and successful aspects of Home-Start is its focus on the wellbeing of parents and their families. Patricia Ferguson is no longer in the chamber, but she made an important point about the specialist training that goes with the development of the individual. Naturally, that fosters a feeling of self-confidence that helps parents to take full advantage of the splendid support that is on offer from the volunteers.
That support can take a wide variety of forms because it has to reflect many and varied difficult circumstances, a lot of which can be long term. That can include loneliness and isolation, mental health issues, low self-esteem, poor physical health and, on some occasions, domestic abuse. The incredible work that is carried out by the volunteers, who strive to tackle those issues, must be undertaken in collaboration with local authorities and health boards.
The point about the service being personalised and decentralised is important, because that autonomy really matters to the character of the programme. I totally accept Bob Doris’s point about the financing of such a service. If one is going to deliver at a local level, that has implications.
The good news is that there is concrete evidence of the outstanding support that has been provided by Home-Start in recent years. If I am not mistaken, the University of Glamorgan has conducted a lot of analysis that shows a huge increase in the number of families who have been supported who can now help themselves. The study, which was done in 2013, found a jump from 29 to 45 per cent in the number of families who said that, which is no mean feat in difficult circumstances. As members of Parliament, we must always remember that there are real lives and real constituents who need not only the help of those splendid volunteers but our help and support.
I know that we are tight for time, so I will finish there. I thank Bob Doris for bringing this important motion to the Parliament and I thank Home-Start on behalf of constituents across Mid Scotland and Fife for the extraordinary work that it carries out.
12:55
I congratulate Bob Doris on securing the debate, which celebrates the fantastic work of Home-Start. It is great to see so many representatives of Home-Start in the public gallery—especially on a day like today, when it might be more tempting to sit out in the park and eat an ice cream. I give a particular mention to Brian McCran and Sheila Leel from Home-Start Dunfermline’s board of trustees, and to scheme manager Kirsty Richardson, who cannot be here today but who does a brilliant job for Home-Start Dunfermline and for local families and volunteers.
In the past year, Home-Start has supported 96 families, including 190 children, in Dunfermline and south-west Fife, either through one-to-one volunteer home visiting, the weekly family group or a combination of both. Home-Start helps families who have one or more children under the age of five and supports them to achieve happy home environments in which the parents and children can thrive. It provides early intervention to prevent families from reaching crisis points, and to overcome some of the real challenges that every mum and dad can face. It opens up opportunities to develop support networks and friendships at a time when many people can feel isolated. It also opens up access to gym membership and swimming lessons, which might otherwise be out of people’s reach, thanks to a partnership with Fife Sports and Leisure Trust. It helps mums and dads to get out of the house with day trips and outings, arts and crafts and structured play sessions, for example messy play and book bug, and it provides information sessions on subjects ranging from budgeting skills to jewellery making. As colleagues have said, it is basically about having fun.
On top of that, Home-Start Dunfermline has developed new initiatives this year, such as group and one-to-one infant-massage classes, and it is working in partnership with local agencies to deliver evidence-based parenting programmes to vulnerable families—for example, the mellow parenting programme. Fife Council has embraced a radical agenda to transform early years provision and to end the cycle of disadvantage that too many children are caught up in, and Home-Start has played a full role in that as a partner in the south-west Fife family nurture hub, which delivers intensive family support services to families in my constituency who have children aged zero to three, and to vulnerable mums during pregnancy.
It is impossible to celebrate the tremendous role that Home-Start plays in our communities without celebrating the contribution of each and every volunteer. Home-Start Dunfermline rightly recognises that the 37 volunteers who work across south-west Fife to support local families are the organisation’s most important asset. Every volunteer is carefully matched to the families that they support, which is vital in ensuring positive outcomes for those families. Volunteers are not just dropped in at the deep end—every volunteer is fully supported to build their skills and confidence, too. From speaking to some of the local volunteers, I know that the experience that they gain from working with Home-Start is invaluable and rewarding.
In Dunfermline and right across Scotland, Home-Start volunteers do an absolutely brilliant job in supporting mums and dads, improving the lives of vulnerable children and making a real difference to communities. However, the work of Home-Start volunteers needs to be backed up by political change at local and national levels in order to improve children’s life chances and transform their lives. Last November, I attended the launch of “All Our Children: Home-Start’s manifesto for families 2014”. The manifesto has three key aims, which are that all our children should grow up with
“safe places to live and play
support when their parents suffer from a mental illness”
and
“protection from hunger and poor nutrition”.
Those are basic needs, but right now they are not being met, which means that children are missing out on the support that they need and deserve.
That is impacting on children’s life chances, now and for the future. Too many families across Scotland are struggling day to day and week to week. Strains and stresses—irrespective of whether they are due to poor housing, to financial problems, to benefit sanctions or to mental health or addiction issues—often mean that children miss out on the support, stability and nurture that they need in order to thrive.
We all want Scotland to be the best place in the world to grow up in. All children, wherever they are and whatever their background, have the right to the best possible start in life. The proposals for action in Home-Start’s manifesto would be a good starting point, so I encourage the minister to pay close attention to them. Home-Start is calling on all political parties to put children’s lives at the heart of policy making. I hope that across the chamber we can work together to ensure that that happens, so that every family has the support that they need and every child has the best possible start. I wish Home-Start every success in the future. I am confident that it will go from strength to strength in supporting families in Dunfermline, Fife and right across Scotland.
12:59
I begin by thanking Bob Doris for bringing the motion to the chamber for debate because it affords Parliament the chance to recognise the achievements of Home-Start across Scotland, and because it allows me to note the very positive work that is being done in my constituency. As members are well aware, that is not an opportunity that I would ever let pass.
Those of us who are parents know that raising a child can, at times, be as challenging as it is hugely rewarding. There is no manual for being a parent; most of us base our approach to bringing up our children on what we experienced as youngsters ourselves. If we are lucky, we will be able to turn to the parents who reared us for practical help and advice.
Not everyone is so fortunate, however, and that is where Home-Start can come in, by supporting young parents as they learn to cope and furnishing them with the knowledge and confidence to provide appropriate parenting for their kids.
It is not just the children who benefit. Home-Start’s 2014 social impact report tells us that 95 per cent of families who were supported felt that their children’s emotional and physical health and wellbeing had improved, and 94 per cent of parents said that their own emotional health had improved. Similarly high percentages of parents felt that they became more involved in their children’s development and were better able to manage their children’s behaviour. Parents feel that they empowered, as well.
Since Home-Start began operating in Angus in 1994, it has helped more than 1,100 young families through more than 260 volunteers giving up some of their free time to ensure that the service can be delivered. The service has assisted parents who were feeling isolated, who were suffering from poor mental health, or who were lacking the confidence to cope with their children’s behaviour.
Mirroring the picture nationally, we have seen an extremely positive evaluation from those who benefit from the organisation’s work. A survey of 35 families in Angus who ended their interactions with the service during the period April 2014-15 found that 94 per cent felt less isolated and had made links with other parents and/or services, that 96 per cent reported that their emotional health had improved, and that 96 per cent felt more confident in their parenting and had successfully implemented more positive parenting techniques.
At the beginning of the year, my colleague Mike Weir MP and I visited Home-Start’s premises, which are located just a hundred yards from my constituency office in Arbroath. We were pleased to show our support for the organisation and to congratulate the team on securing a grant of £300,000 from the Big Lottery Fund for their five-year “bumps and beyond” project. The project offers parents-to-be and new parents the opportunity to meet a Home-Start volunteer who understands the pressures of family life. Home-Start volunteers visit young families regularly in their own homes. For pre-birth and new parents, that means that they can access help with the practical preparations for having a baby, such as getting to appointments, as well as having someone they can trust to talk to and share experiences with. The Big Lottery funding was a major boost for the work of Home-Start locally and has provided much-needed financial security.
The importance of landing that funding has since become all the more obvious with the news that the financing that is associated with the 2015-16 service-level agreement with Angus Council has been cut by 5 per cent. The organisation has also been advised that this is the first of three years of cuts in that funding. Of course, that is the economic reality for many third sector organisations across the UK, and we should accept that councils have to make tough budgetary choices. I hope that Home-Start’s work can continue undiminished, because there is no sign of a reduction in the demand for the services that it offers.
Home-Start has a key role to play in helping to ensure that families who require fairly basic support can access it. By addressing or preventing challenges that parents may face early on, I hope that we can avoid far more serious issues arising further down the track.
I conclude my speech by congratulating my colleague Bob Doris on allowing us to highlight the work that is done by Home-Start in our communities, and to acknowledge its importance.
13:03
Like Patricia Ferguson, I offer my apologies because I might have to leave shortly, before the end of the debate. I have a meeting with Orkney’s two members of the Scottish Youth Parliament, Jack Norquoy and Thorfinn Moffat, who I am pleased to say have joined Home-Start staff and volunteers in the public gallery this afternoon.
I warmly congratulate Bob Doris on securing such an important debate. His motion fairly highlights the enormous and often unsung successes of Home-Start in communities across Scotland and the wider UK. It has helped 2,000 families and given 4,000 children the support that they need. In absolute terms, those numbers might not sound particularly high in the context of Scotland as a whole, but we should not lose sight of the vulnerability of those who benefit from input from Home-Start workers and volunteers. Such interventions can and do have a profound effect through changing lives and, as the motion suggests, through building resilience and confidence, and bringing about positive social change.
By way of illustration, as Cara Hilton did, I remember attending the event that was held in Parliament not so long ago, and which was aimed at highlighting and celebrating the excellent work of Home-Start around the country. Many speakers addressed the meeting that evening, but without doubt the stand-out performers were two Home-Start volunteers from—I think—the Alloa area. For different reasons, both of them had previously been recipients of Home-Start support. They talked candidly about the problems that they had experienced and the desperation, isolation and helplessness that they were feeling by the time they came into contact with Home-Start. However, both those volunteers provided the most eloquent testimony possible of the transformative effect that Home-Start support can deliver.
It was wonderful to see those two remarkable women having the confidence to share their experiences with a group of people who were, largely, strangers—albeit friendly ones. More wonderful still was hearing how they are now both volunteering with Home-Start, providing to others the kind of support that enabled them to rebuild their lives, and thereby offering hope and confidence about what the future holds. It really was a very moving and memorable occasion and one that I felt privileged to be a part of.
As colleagues may be aware, earlier this year I lodged a motion in support of the work of Home-Start. The reason for lodging that motion back in January was to acknowledge and welcome over £285,000 from the Big Lottery Fund for Home-Start Orkney. As Liz Smith said earlier, one of the great strengths of Home-Start is the way in which it tailors its provision to suit local circumstances. In Orkney local circumstances obviously include pressure to deliver support across a number of small islands to people who need it. I am thankful that Big Lottery funding is now enabling that to take place.
A new co-ordinator for the isles has been appointed and volunteers are being actively sought, with a view to expanding the network in order to help to develop parenting skills, to build more positive family relationships and to provide in communities that are not currently benefiting from it the sort of invaluable input that is Home-Start’s trademark. That is really good news, because families in the remoter parts of my constituency often face additional challenges, notably in terms of isolation and financial costs. That is why it is great to see Home-Start expanding its reach beyond the mainland of Orkney, out to the smaller islands.
As with other parts of the country, demand for Home-Start’s services has been on the increase in Orkney, even before the latest expansion of the service. Since 2010, volunteer hours have almost trebled and the number of families who are struggling to cope with mental ill-health, abusive relationships, financial difficulties and social isolation is clearly on the rise. I am very grateful, therefore, that Erika Copland and her colleagues at Home-Start Orkney are showing their determination to meet that challenge, although the prospect of what may happen should the UK Government press ahead with further welfare cuts is causing understandably anxiety. I would therefore urge both the Scottish and UK Governments to heed calls from Home-Start for continued investment in support for families and children in the early years.
I congratulate Bob Doris once again, and I thank all those who are involved with Home-Start Orkney—and across the country—for the wonderful and very necessary work that they do on our behalf.
13:08
I congratulate Bob Doris on introducing the motion. I welcome the representatives from all the different Home-Start groups from across Scotland who are in the gallery, particularly the wonderful staff of the wonderful Home-Start Leith and North-East Edinburgh. I was very pleased to open the relatively new Home-Start office on Leith Walk four years ago, but in fact the group has been active in Leith for 30 years.
Home-Start Leith and North-East Edinburgh receives 90 per cent of its funding from the council and is grateful for that, but, as with other groups, there are concerns about that funding being continued. I hope that the council will maintain its commitment to the wonderful work of the group.
Home-Start is one of several great children’s organisations in my constituency. I want to mention two others that work with Home-Start Leith and North-East Edinburgh: Dr Bell’s Family Centre and Multi-Cultural Family Base in Leith. I pay tribute to the staff but, like others, I must also pay tribute to the volunteers. There were about 50 volunteers involved with Home-Start Leith group over the past year.
I spoke to a volunteer that I know and she was praising the wonderful training that volunteers are given before they engage with families. I met another volunteer recently who had extra training as part of the parent’s early education programme. That volunteer participated in the twin babies group. That was a time-limited group, but other activities are on-going.
There are regular parent and children’s groups and social events. As other speakers mentioned, a central feature of the group’s work is a volunteer working with a family. That means tailored, personalised support to families in their own homes. We could regard this as a significant part of the preventative spend agenda that we all praise so often in the Parliament. We need to promote examples of that.
The parents in the families with which Home-Start works might face diverse circumstances, such as isolation, bereavement, multiple births, illness, disability or just finding parenting a struggle. In each case, the volunteers respond to their individual needs and respect each family’s dignity and identity. As a result, as we hear from the different groups, parents are becoming more confident and developing stronger parent-child relationships. I will quote one parent:
“Thanks to you I feel there is always someone who cares, who believes that this difficult time will pass and who helps get through it.”
Of course, that work does not replace statutory services. For example, Home-Start groups regularly emphasise the central role of health visitors and ask for more funding for them. Cara Hilton mentioned Home-Start’s manifesto and I notice that the subtitle is “Listen to the voice of families”. Home-Start is using its experience with families to advocate on the issues that it realises are important to those families.
Cara Hilton referred to mental health as one of those issues and I note that the recent survey of Home-Start groups in Scotland showed that 64 per cent of children in participating families had no support from health and social work when their parents suffered mental illness. I noticed that the Glasgow North group emphasised that aspect. I have not been so aware of it with the families in Leith, but I am sure that there are mental health issues for some of them.
I wish all the best to the Glasgow North group, the Leith group and all the groups in Scotland. I am afraid that I have to leave at the scheduled end of the debate at 1.15, so I will be able to listen to only one more speech. However, it is a good sign that we have a long debate because so many people feel strongly about the issue.
I extended the debate and Parliament agreed to that, so we will listen to two more speeches and then the minister.
13:12
I warmly congratulate Bob Doris on bringing the debate to the chamber. It is a hugely worthwhile debate, as the speeches of all members have shown, and I am pleased to participate in it.
Like others, I am afraid that I will be unashamedly parochial in my approach and speak of Home-Start Wigtownshire in the extreme west of my constituency. The chair, Dorothy Skinner, is in the public gallery. I am afraid that my eyesight is ageing rather more rapidly than the rest of me and I am not able to confirm her presence visually, but I am sure that that is the case.
The great strength of Home-Start is that, although it is a national charity, its various schemes and operations are rooted in the communities that they serve and are managed locally. That is certainly the case with Home-Start Wigtownshire and it appears to be the case with others, as members have said. I have no doubt that it is the core reason for the organisation’s great success.
Home-Start Wigtownshire has been running for 15 years and, in the last accountable year, provided support to 128 children from 60 different families throughout Wigtownshire. That is not easy to do in such a rural area. Simply identifying those most vulnerable families is a massive task because, for reasons that Bob Doris talked about, poverty and social deprivation can lead to the isolation that Liam McArthur and others highlighted. That isolation, particularly in a sparsely populated rural area, makes identifying families difficult and it is hugely to the credit of Home-Start and its partner organisations that they have been able to identify that number of people. They do that by operating three family groups known as the tweenies in the county. Those groups are funded by the Big Lottery Fund and are so sought after that each of them now has a waiting list of families who are keen to join. Each tweenies group has its own dedicated project worker to ensure that they all meet local needs.
Partly to overcome that waiting list issue, and also because one-to-one visits are very important in these situations, Home-Start also undertakes a huge number of home visits. They are vital for giving confidence back to those who have none. That lack of confidence can cover everything, from feeding a baby to household budgeting and everything in between.
As all members who have spoken have highlighted, none of this could happen without the massive support of the volunteers who make it possible. Home-Start Wigtownshire has 27 home-visiting volunteers, along with the six trustees, making a total of 33. Those selfless individuals undergo regular training in a wide range of specialisms that include welfare reform, first aid, child protection, hepatitis B, autism awareness and a variety of other issues that they might encounter as they go about their work. They are indeed selfless, because they are passing on their own hard-earned experiences as parents—all of us who have been parents know that those experiences are hard earned—to others who, for whatever reason, have lost all confidence in their own parenting skills.
When you meet the co-ordinator of Home-Start Wigtownshire, Mary Wilson, and her administrator, Fiona McDonald, who, along with the three project workers, make up the entire team, you instantly appreciate just how much this work means to them. It may be their jobs, but it clearly means so much more than just that. As the chairperson’s latest report said,
“The staff team have delivered an outstanding service to the families we support and the referers with whom we work.
As their workload has increased they have been put under considerable pressure to deliver, and they deserve our grateful thanks for their work in maintaining the professional standards we have come to expect.”
Indeed they do. They also deserve the grateful thanks of the Parliament. I am more than pleased to support the motion before us as a way of doing just that.
13:16
I add my congratulations to Bob Doris on securing the debate.
A few months ago, I was fortunate enough to host the Home-Start reception here in the Scottish Parliament, to which colleagues have referred. At that event, which marked the launch of Home-Start’s first policy manifesto for Scotland, we heard from Professor Phil Hanlon, who is a professor of public health at the University of Glasgow, and from Home-Start UK’s chief executive, Rob Parkinson, both of whom spoke about the challenges facing public services and the people who work in them. They specifically referred to addressing the related challenges of having to provide support to families whose lives have been devastated by poverty and inequality, while at the same time being able to make the investments and interventions that have been proven to make a difference and which will therefore reduce the human and financial cost of poverty in the long run.
After that, we heard from women from Alloa whose families had been supported by Home-Start volunteers and whose lives had been changed by that help. Those women had been able to move on with their lives, not only to become Home-Start volunteers but, crucially, to develop as people, with the confidence and self-worth to want to grow and to effect positive change for themselves, their families and their communities. That is the impact that Home-Start can have on people’s lives.
We should encourage employers to help potential volunteers to get involved with Home-Start. In the past, I have allowed a member of my staff regular time off to volunteer with Home-Start. Not all employers will be able to do that, but those who can should. The Scottish Government should closely examine ways to support employers who want to do that but who currently cannot.
Home-Start helps people for a wide variety of reasons. It helps when parents or children have mental health problems as a result of difficult and traumatic births, or when parents encounter trouble accessing the services and benefits that would help them to support their families. Home-Start works with families day in, day out, and it deserves much greater recognition for its hard work.
We should keep in mind just how challenging the circumstances in which many people whom Home-Start supports find themselves. More than four out of five Home-Starts in Scotland work with families whose children are not protected from food poverty. That is higher than the level reported by Home-Starts elsewhere in the UK. Four out of five Home-Starts work with families where children do not have safe places to live and play. Almost two thirds of them believe that children in the families they work with are not adequately supported by health and social work services when parents suffer mental illness.
It would be valuable for MSPs to read the Home-Start policy manifesto, and I urge them to do so. It highlights three main priorities:
“All our children should have safe places to live and play ... All our children with a parent suffering from a mental illness should be supported ... All our children should be well nourished and protected from hunger and poor nutrition.”
Achieving that will require a co-ordinated and sustained effort by government at all levels and a willingness to think beyond departments or budget headings and to put tackling poverty at the heart of service planning and delivery for all public agencies.
We live in a country in which 350,000 children will live in cold homes this winter. For 200,000 children, those homes will be damp. That is a shame on all of us, and I sincerely hope that we begin to make progress in reversing the rising tide of child poverty in this country. Home-Start has a valuable role to play in that. It helps people to live better lives. It brings communities together.
At the launch, Professor Hanlon spoke about how scary it would be to be suddenly lost in a jungle, and how scary it is for families who find themselves lost in the territory of being homeless or in poverty. He said that someone who is lost in a scary jungle might find it helpful to talk to professionals or politicians who are committed and highly skilled, but the best help that they could get might come from someone who lives in that jungle and knows how to find their way around and can work out what is best for them. He drew the parallel between someone in a scary jungle getting help from someone who lives there and a family in a scary—I use that word advisedly—community getting help from Home-Start.
I hope that the debate will be the beginning of an increased recognition of the work that Home-Start and its volunteers do every day across Scotland. It is difficult and scary work, but it is also valuable. We must all recognise the positive contribution that Home-Start makes in each of our constituencies and regions.
13:21
Like others, I congratulate Bob Doris on securing this valuable debate about a service that, from what we have heard today, impacts positively on the lives of many of his constituents and others across Scotland and, more recently, across the UK.
Home-Start is a charity whose activities give confidence and resilience to families and are worth celebrating in Parliament today. I welcome those from the organisation who are in the gallery today.
Our programme for government, which we published in November, set out three key priorities: creating a wealthier nation; promoting equality; and empowering communities. Our success in delivering all those priorities depends on the involvement of the third sector, including organisations such as Home-Start. Third sector organisations are essential partners in delivering services to individuals across the country. The Scottish Government recognises the critical role that the third sector plays in addressing issues of inequality and the needs of disadvantaged communities, and is committed to supporting the sector across Scotland.
The Scottish Government is providing the 32 third sector interfaces across Scotland with £8 million for 2015-16 to deliver volunteering development and social enterprise development, to support and develop a strong third sector and to build the relationship with community planning. We are taking action to mitigate as far as possible the effects of welfare reform by investing £2.5 million over 2014-15 and 2015-16 to build the capacity and resilience of communities and local third sector organisations, particularly by helping them to respond to the worst effects of changes to the welfare system.
A point that was well made by Mr Doris concerned the impact of poverty on physical and mental health. At the risk of touching on more contentious issues, I think that many—not all—of us would acknowledge the connection between what is happening in the welfare system and the issues relating to poverty.
The £34,102 that Home-Start Glasgow North West received for a period of one year as part of the one Glasgow initiative, funded by the third sector early intervention fund, was used to support 15 families through home visiting. I use that as an example because, of those 15 families, 13 found out about and engaged with other services and sources of support in their local community, and eight reported an improvement in their capacity to manage their child’s or children’s physical or emotional health.
Furthermore, funding from the third sector early intervention fund of £590,937 for the three years 2013 to 2016 was granted to Home-Start UK for the Scottish element of its work. At the end of the first year of that funding, 2013-14, a total of 2,607 families had been home visited and supported across 19 local authority areas. By the six-month point of year 2 of the funding, 1,559 families had been supported.
I mention those statistics because they are important. Those are real families. In the course of the debate many members alluded to the impact of Home-Start’s work on individual families and children.
Does the minister welcome the good work that Home-Start Glasgow North does with such families, particularly in the refugee and asylum-seeker community, which it was remiss of me not to mention in my opening speech?
I am very happy to acknowledge the work that Bob Doris refers to and the particular problems, issues and challenges that families from the asylum-seeking and refugee communities in Scotland face. Home-Start is certainly to be commended on the work that it does with those communities.
Members have mentioned other work that Home-Start does. James Dornan described some of the challenges that many families face and Liz Smith rightly highlighted the personalised nature of the work that volunteers do for individuals who deal with those challenges. Cara Hilton and Graeme Dey highlighted the work of Home-Start in their constituencies, as did Malcolm Chisholm. Liam McArthur pointed out that many of those who are helped by Home-Start go on to volunteer themselves and he made very valuable points about the challenges that many families face in island areas—a point that I certainly understand. Alex Fergusson mentioned the challenges of isolation in other rural areas of Scotland and Jayne Baxter raised important points about encouraging employers to support their employees who want to volunteer with voluntary sector organisations such as Home-Start.
Patricia Ferguson described the impact of Home-Start on individual families and raised the question of funding. In that case, perhaps it is as well for me to point to the fact that a new children, young people and families early intervention fund is due to be launched by Fiona McLeod at an event in Edinburgh on Tuesday 22 June. National voluntary organisations will then have until 30 September to apply. Home-Start will be eligible to apply for further funding through that process.
In concluding, I thank Bob Doris again for giving us the opportunity to talk about an organisation whose work it is right that we all learn about, celebrate and support.
13:28 Meeting suspended.