Home-Start in Scotland is on a mission to engage a more diverse group of volunteers. Support from the Children and Young People’s Fund to increase male volunteering has fuelled growing ambitions. Since Volunteers Week 2018 Home-Start UK has been highlighting the benefits of volunteering and of increasing volunteer diversity in family support work.
Two MSPs – Iain Gray and Bob Doris – spoke in praise of Home-Start in the Volunteers Week debate in parliament on 5th June 2018. Iain Gray spoke of the powerful testimony offered by HS East Lothian volunteer Elizabeth Butler in the short film made with her to mark Volunteers Week. Bob Doris remarked on the high quality volunteer training and support provided by Home-Start Glasgow North.
This profile-raising support has highlighted the work Home-Start UK in Scotland has been doing to bring more diversity into the voluntary sector. The series showcased a mix of dads, refugees, students, young mothers and grandmothers, all sharing their experience of volunteering.
With many services continuing to make dads feel marginalised and excluded, Home-Start UK is slowly changing the culture that says motherhood is more central to women than fatherhood is to men. This means recruiting more male volunteers, and engaging with more fathers in the communities where Home-Start works.
Andrew moved from being part of a supported family to being a volunteer himself. His testimony emphasises the difference active engagement with local family services has made to his confidence as a dad. The shift towards inclusion is making Home-Start’s service more engaging, more inclusive, and more representative of modern day families in Scotland.
Find the series on social media using #HomeStartStories or go to the Home-Start Website here.
Watch Andrew’s story here: YouTube Video.