Press release – Home-Start Manchester North

Local family support charity Home-Start Manchester North is delighted to announce it has been awarded over £272,000 from the Big Lottery Fund! This welcome grant will secure the scheme’s medium term future and provide strong foundations on which to expand the service.  The funding will be spread over the next five years and the charity’s Management Committee, Staff and Volunteers involved in the scheme are encouraged by the news that significant funding has been made available to an area where there are real needs to be met.

The scheme, which is just over a year old, recruits and trains local parents to provide emotional and practical support to families with young children in Blackley, Crumpsall, Charlestown, Moston and Harpurhey. Volunteers help families who may be isolated, have limited family, suffer poor mental or physical health, need advice and support on housing or financial issues, where family members have disability or special needs, through bereavement or family breakdown.

Scheme Coordinator Shelley Byrne says; “In simple terms, our volunteers offer confidential and non-judgemental friendship to try and ease the strain for families experiencing stress for whatever reason. We are overjoyed with the news of secured funding, which means over the next five years we will be able to reach out to at least 185 families and around 550 children!”

As welcome as the news is, the scheme sees this merely as merely the beginning. There are many more families who could benefit from Home-Start support, and likewise an astonishing number of local people wanting to become volunteers. The Management Committee are going to be working in the coming months and years to secure yet more funding for an increase in the service provided in the current areas, as well as to expand geographically. “This is a practical demonstration on helping to release the potential of an individual” Michael Harvey Home Start North Manchester Trustee

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