RIGHT here in Herefordshire, a non-profit making local charity established 32 years ago, helps vulnerable and fragile families overcome the stresses and strains of everyday life, situation that have become too much to cope with, without a little extra support.

Home-Start Herefordshire runs a voluntary service from their offices in Rotherwas Hereford but covers the whole of the county, recruiting and training adults to become home visiting volunteer. Alison Jones (marketing and volunteer recruitment coordinator says "Our dedicated volunteers give up three hours of their time a week to visit a family in their home. The volunteers give support, help, encouragement and friendship. These visits help to put new strategies in place for a family that is struggling for a variety or reasons i.e. isolation, disability, depression, multiple birth, school issues, abuse and many more. The volunteers help to build new confidences and new abilities to overcome difficult situations."

Before a volunteer can be matched with a family in need, each adult (male or female) needs to complete a course of volunteer preparation. "We ask all potential volunteers to attend 40 hours of training here at our Rotherwas offices in order to teach them about the ethos of Home-Start and to prepare them for their visits with families. During the training we get to know more about our volunteers, enabling us to match them suitably with a family in need. Once the a volunteer starts to visit a family the staff at Home-Start Herefordshire give constant support and guidance to both the family being supported and the volunteer."

To become one of the team all you need to be is a parent or have teaching/parenting skills and be free to come on the training course. Driving is an advantage but not essential.

If you feel you could help give support to a local family and would like to become one of the volunteers, the next preparation course will be starting on the May 14. The course will run every Thursday for 10 weeks and will cover many different aspect of life. The course is free but if you wish to do the course at an accredited level to gain credits for further education the registration fee is £30. For more information please call 01432 371212 or email ali.homestart@gmail.com www.homestartherefordshire.co.uk