Family Support

How we can help you

Support for families often occurs naturally through family, friends or members of the community. However, this may not be the case for everyone. We recognise that not all families have the same support networks and that sometimes you might need some advice or support from a person outside of the situation. Our family support workers are here for any family member: mum, dad, son, daughter, brother, sister or grandparent to offer confidential help and support.
The help we offer falls into three main kinds:

Emotional Support:

We are trained to listen. We can help you make sense of what you’ve been through, tell you about choices you can make and help you to get your life back under control. Talking to us gives you the chance to get things off your chest. While many people can do this with friends and family; this doesn’t work for everyone. We provide a safe and confidential ear for people to offload their problems, worries and emotions. This can help you cope with your situation and enable you to move forwards.

Information Giving:

We are not here to judge you, we are not fazed by anything you could ask and we will try to help in any situation. If we are not able to help solve your issues we usually know someone who can. We liaise with many professional including doctors, health visitors, midwives, speech and language therapists, health trainers, mental health workers and social services. Our phone books are packed full of useful numbers to enable us to give the best possible support. We can also help you to start a new course or learn a new skill by working alongside the HOPE training team.

Practical Help:

We can also help on a more practical level with parenting skills, dealing with disruptive children, house management, breastfeeding, child development, filling in forms or attending meetings and court proceedings with you.

People you can trust:

Kim Snookes-Hathway, Jane Nicol and Gemma Lloyd make up our family support team. We can give you support over the phone or face-to-face. We can arrange visits to your home, at our offices or somewhere else that you feel comfortable and relaxed. We’ll be there for as long as you need us and if we can’t help to sort out your problems ourselves, we can help put you in touch with other professionals or organisations that can.

Click Here to read about some of the people we have helped.

We also run a number of groups, supporting parents in a more informal manner by giving information and helpful tips. Our current groups include Stay and Play, Family Group, Baby Days, Young Parents and Baby Massage. Click here for more information on the groups and classes available.