Alyson Ross – Home Start Volunteer

My background is in community education, early intervention and family support. I actually used to work for Home Start as a Group Worker, so when the pandemic hit and I was furloughed from my current job I noticed on their Facebook page that they were urgently looking for volunteers and decided to get involved.

I know from my time working at Home Start that they don’t tend to assign their more difficult or complex families to volunteers as they may not have the right expertise, so people who need the most support often go unsupported. I told them I know there are people out there who need help and it gives me something to do and make good use of my time too.

I was matched with a family – a single mum and her two children - and only managed to see her face-to-face twice before Stirling went into Level 4 lockdown, but we talk on the phone and text now instead.  She knows if she ever needs a food shopping done or activities dropped off for the kids or anything like that, I’m on the other end of a phone.

The young woman I support is trying to home school a P4 and look after a two year old, and doesn’t have a lot of family or support around her. She has incredibly low self-esteem and self-worth – she just doesn’t believe in herself – so a lot of the work I do with her is actually confidence building, because she’s a really good mum who is kind and considerate of her children’s needs.

During our second visit I told her that I thought she was a really good mum and that we just needed to work on her self-esteem.She almost cried.  She said “That’s so nice.  Nobody’s ever said that to me” and I thought - she just needs a wee confidence boost.  She just needs a wee hug.  Or someone to tell her she’s actually doing a good job.  Because I think as a parent you question your every move, don’t you?  You just kind of worry that you’re doing it wrong or you’re going to mess up somewhere along the way, and if you don’t have someone to tell you that you’re not then you kind of believe that forever.  So that was a glimmer of I could probably make a difference in her life.  She just needs a bit of a confidence boost. 

I’ve just been offering her some support for what to do with the kids, because lockdown in summer was so much easier, but what can you do with young children in the winter? I send her arts and crafts activities – “Saw this, thought of you” type stuff – just trying to keep the brain busy, trying to keep the kids busy. If we’re on the phone I’ll say I saw this thing on Facebook, you should check out this page, cause there are so many good support pages out there. It’s just knowing that someone’s there. I also offered to switch from text to WhatsApp, because a lot of people don’t have a good internet connection or have unlimited texts. 

I think it makes a difference that I have two kids and I’m home schooling so we can chat about that as well.  Although I wish I could go and visit.  I’m praying to get out of lockdown soon so I can just go and see her and go out for a walk or go to the park with them all or something.  But hopefully it has made enough of a difference that she knows that there’s support there, and there’s someone at the end of a phone if she needs it. 

Volunteering just gives you that sense that you’re making a difference and offering someone some support.  It’s almost like Karma.  Just paying back a little bit.  I’m lucky that I’ve got a very supportive family.  I’ve got really supportive friends and I just like to be that for other people. So I guess it’s a bit of a self-worth boost for me is knowing that I can help someone.  And it gives me something to do. 

HomeStart is an amazing organisation.  I’ve worked with a lot of youth services and done a lot of youth and community groups and worked with children and young people but the work that HomeStart do is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced.  It’s so valuable and it’s so varied.  It’s such interesting work they do and because each and every individual family is supported in a different way, the toolbelt that the staff have is just unbelievable.  The range of volunteers they have, the range of staff is just so varied, it’s so wide – because it needs to be.  And they work really hard to ensure that the match with each family is correct.