Hansard

I thank everyone who has taken part in the debate who reinforced how to pronounce Garioch. I thought it might have been pronounced differently when I was preparing for the debate. In particular, I thank Alison McInnes for lodging the motion, and I thank everyone else who took part in the debate. David Torrance spoke about Home-Start in Kirkcaldy and across Fife, Lewis Macdonald spoke about his personal reflections of the Garioch area and Aberdeenshire, Alex Johnstone spoke about the impressive network of support across the north-east, and Christian Allard spoke about his experiences of voluntary organisations in that region.

I wish Home-Start Garioch a very happy 20th birthday. It has helped thousands of families over the past two decades. It is an honour to mark such a significant milestone here in Parliament.

As so many of our dedicated third-sector partners do, Home-Start plays a vital role in supporting our most vulnerable families right across Scotland’s communities. Many issues are faced by families today, including in perinatal health, social exclusion, isolation and problems of access to services—the social and rural isolation that Lewis Macdonald and Alex Johnstone pointed out—and the challenges of separation that families go through, which Christian Allard pointed out. I commend Home-Start Garioch and its colleagues for the transformational work that they do. David Torrance was absolutely right to point out the additional challenges that far too many families face around the welfare reform agenda and poverty.

Through the third sector early intervention fund, this Government has invested more than £590,000 in Home-Start UK to deliver services across Scotland. In Aberdeenshire, Home-Start Garioch is a member of the family solutions plus public social partnership, alongside Children 1st, Home-Start North East Aberdeenshire, NHS Grampian and Aberdeenshire Council social work department.

Through the early years change fund, we have invested more than £8.5 million to create a number of family-support public social partnerships, such as family solutions plus. Partnerships between third sector agencies and local authorities take an assertive outreach approach and provide families with intensive support when it matters most, thereby preventing problems from escalating.

The aim of family solutions plus is to improve and safeguard the wellbeing of children who are not engaging in or accessing universal provision, and to increase family capacity and resilience. The partnership adopts an early intervention approach, focusing on providing intensive support for families when they need it. Practical interventions focus on enhancing family networks, to increase resilience. Again, I thank Home-Start Garioch and its partners for all that work.

The first Home-Start in Scotland was established in Perth in 1984. Today, nearly 15,000 home-visiting volunteers across the United Kingdom help more than 29,000 families every year, giving more than 1 million hours of their time. In Scotland, more than 2,000 families, including more than 4,000 children, are being supported by nearly 1,000 volunteers through local schemes. The organisation operates in 22 countries and on five continents.

Alison McInnes talked about the hours that the volunteers at Home-Start Garioch put in. She mentioned the sterling work that Sandra Herbert, Claire Smith, Angela Gowdy and Valerie Tennant have been doing for a long time in their local group. The energy and drive of Home-Start’s well-trained workers and volunteers are inspirational. Those people make a significant contribution not just in Aberdeenshire, but right across Scotland. Home-Start volunteers support families with young children to deal with whatever life throws at them, and they support parents as they learn to cope, improve their confidence and build better lives for their children.

That approach very much chimes with the aims of our parenting strategy, which seeks to value and raise the profile of parenting and to build on parents’ assets and strength, building confidence and sustaining change. As Alison McInnes rightly said, a child does not come with a manual. Bringing up a child is one of the most important things that any of us does, so it is right to support parents in their important role.

As Alison McInnes said, Home-Start volunteers visit the family’s home for a couple of hours every week, tailoring their support to the needs of the parents and children. They also run family groups and social events, to give children the best possible start in life. The work that Home-Start does with vulnerable and socially excluded families is to be applauded.

The debate gives us a chance not only to recognise volunteers’ dedication and commitment, but to reflect on what volunteers gain from the work that they do. I was interested to learn that Home-Start UK has carried out work that demonstrates the positive benefits of volunteering for volunteers, including increased confidence, development of skills and knowledge and increased involvement in the community. I could go on, but that shows what volunteers get back from their volunteering.

The debate also gives us a chance to acknowledge the third sector, which is fleet of foot and can tailor its responses to urgent need. In preparing for the debate, I took a quick look at Home-Start Garioch’s Facebook page. One post, in particular, caught my eye. It said:

“We have a family moving into temporary accommodation who have nothing. If anyone has spare bedding, single beds, or bunk beds, chest of drawers, sofa, kettle, crockery ... it would go to a really good home”.

There had been a phenomenal response to the request, with offers coming from across the region of everything from toys to a garden rake. That kind of practical help is powerful and transformational for families in a time of crisis.

All our policies for children and young people have one overall aim: to improve outcomes for every child and young person in Scotland. Again, I thank Home-Start Garioch for striving towards achieving our common ambitions, because what it does very much chimes with the rest of our policy commitments, whether we are talking about getting it right for every child and the legislative commitment that we made to GIRFEC in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, about the early years framework, about the early years collaborative, which embraces what the third sector can do in communities, or about the work that we want to do around developing Scotland’s play strategy. I also understand that Home-Start is doing more and more in relation to mental health.

We have a lot to learn from Home-Start and it is great to be able to recognise the work that it has done, on Home-Start Garioch’s 20th anniversary. I thank Home-Start. Here’s to the next 20 years of success in the organisation’s work, in Garioch and across Scotland and the UK.