National charities, local organisations and supportive individuals continue to encourage us with their generous offers of time and resources to help the families we are supporting.
While much of our contact is currently online, at the beginning of February we seized the opportunity for some face-to-face conversations on the doorstep while delivering a range of donated items. This personal contact was a welcome boost to parents and volunteers alike.
Nurturing language and literacy
Every year, The Book Trust provides a free book and associated resources for pre-school children across the nation to encourage the love of stories and reading.
This year’s Book Start packs were better than ever, with books, song sheets, drawing materials and lots of useful ideas to help parents engage in nurturing language and literacy with young children and babies. With the help of our amazing volunteers, we delivered these packs to every Home-Start family with a child aged 5 or under.
To make the most of this opportunity, we have been focussing our family group activities on books and stories using ideas from the Book Start packs. The children especially liked the pirate activities.
Sparking creativity
Craft resources donated by local residents were combined with items that had been sitting untouched in the Home-Start cupboard for months to make up bags of items to spark creativity within families. These were used to try out some of the mark-making and make your own book ideas from the Book Trust. We also saw evidence of some lovely home-made Valentine’s Day decorations from a couple of families.
Quilted magic
As the Coronavirus pandemic continues to affect families in so many ways, the need for comfort and security is stronger than ever, so we snapped up the offer of individually made unique patchwork quilts from our local branch of Project Linus.
26 children benefitted from a special quilt to snuggle under in bed with a book, on the sofa or even rolling around the floor! The feedback has been amazing, with lots of photos and messages of thanks not only for the resources but also for the time and thought that went into this project.
It is hugely rewarding for the team of staff and volunteers at HSRBSC to know that our work with families who need a helping hand is appreciated by the families themselves and local organisations and communities who support and encourage us in so many ways.
