Welcome to Home-Start Lorn

Who we are

Bringing up children is hard. Home-Start Lorn has been supporting families with young children throughout the whole of the Oban and North Argyll area, including the outlying villages since 1988 and on the Isle of Mull since 2012. Through our home-visiting volunteers, one to one support and group work, we offer a unique service providing practical and emotional support to parents/carers with one or more children under 5 years old.

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Who we can help

We can help parents/carers who find it hard to cope for all sorts of reasons, including:

• those requiring short term respite or a helping hand,
• illness or disability,
• post-natal illness or mental health issues, relationship breakdown,
• bereavement,
• loneliness,
• challenging children's behaviour,
• multiple birth or multiple young children in the home,
• housing or financial issues. 

If you think Home-Start Lorn could help your family, why not find out more? You can either contact your Health Visitor or your GP or you can contact us directly. Our team will arrange to meet with you to further explain what supports we offer and work alongside you to identify your support needs and the best way to meet those needs.

What we offer

Across our service we offer three main support options,
1) Volunteer Support- Families are matched with a volunteer to provide one to one support, friendship and respite. Support is typically 2-3 hours weekly and tailored to the specific needs of families. All of our volunteers are required to be members of the Protecting Vulnerable Groups scheme (PVG) and complete introduction training prior to being matched with families.
 
2) Worker Support- We employ Family Coordinators in Oban and on Mull to provide one to one support, friendship and respite to families. This may be for families that need more intensive support or have complex needs.
 
3) Groups- We currently provide weekly, monthly and seasonal groupwork in Oban and on Mull. This includes Bookbug sessions, outdoor play, messy/sensory play, walking groups, baby massage, peer support groups and community cafes. All groups are free to attend following sign up where applicable.

Families have ongoing access to all three support options once registered. Registration to become a Home-Start Lorn family is free and involves an initial referral from the family or health/social care professional and a follow up visit from our team to help build a family profile and support package.

How you can help

You too could be a Home-Start, Home-Visiting volunteer. The only requirements for Home-Visiting volunteers are that you have parenting/childcare experience or a passion for working with children/families,  are friendly and non-judgemental, enjoy meeting new people and can spare a few hours every week to offer practical and emotional support to a local family.
 
Just as important as our Home-Visiting Volunteers are our Board of Trustees who come from a range of backgrounds and have a variety of qualities and skills to support the organisation to run smoothly and comply with all legislation. We need people with expertise or knowledge of running businesses, social media, funding, human resources and more.
 
We always need enthusiastic fundraisers. Maybe you enjoy organising coffee mornings or bag-packing, kilt-walking, running or maybe even sky diving!