Richmondshire charity gets funding to expand help to Armed Forces families

Volunteers from Home-Start Richmondshire.

A charity has been given the go-ahead to expand its successful family support work.

​Home-Start Richmondshire has been awarded a grant of £65,000 from the Chancellor’s Libor Fund for use over the next two years. ​

​The expansion will enable the charity to support Armed Forces families in Darlington. #

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A group of local volunteers has been supporting parents with young families across Richmondshire for the last eight years.

Their aim is to ensure that the lives of young children are as stable and happy as possible.

Civilian and service families have both been recipients of this support, but as service families are in accommodation away from the main garrison, the new funding will enable the charity to extend its support to them and also pilot different ways of giving people the short term help they need.

To ensure that the wider service can get off on the right footing while keeping the current work at its present successful level, Home-Start is offering a new part-time co-ordinator post to start in September, with the possibility of an administrative post to follow.

Additional volunteers are also to begin training in June.

A spokesperson for the charity said: “Our funding enables us to pay an extra person to work alongside our current small, dedicated professional team who organise everything that needs to be done to ensure the weekly support for each family goes smoothly.

“It’s a great testament to what has already been done when staff, volunteers and families work together that we are being commissioned to do this extended work.”

Details of the work of Home-Start Richmondshire and how to volunteer can all be found at http://www.homestartrichmondshire.org.uk