Last week Home-Start International

chief executive Anna Stuttard visited the Maltese Home-Start scheme locally

supported by Agenzija Appogg and

funded by Vodafone Foundation and

HSBC Cares for Children Fund.

Elaine Attard caught up with

Ms Stuttard and Home-Start Malta

committee during a daylong workshop





Anna Stuttard worked for 15 years with Amnesty International, at the movement’s international secretariat in London. After having worked as a journalist with various Lancashire, UK based newspapers, she joined Amnesty International’s press office in 1994.

She embarked on a career break when she became a mother herself but in the mean time she volunteered with The Breastfeeding Network. Ms Stuttard is a proud mother of two school-aged girls. She held the positions of trustee, supporter and tutor with the UK charity. Ms Stuttard won two awards for her voluntary work, the Millenium Award in 2000 and the Unsung Heroines award in 2006.

Aware of her passion for volunteering, human rights and family support she applied for the role of Home-Start International CEO and got the job in 2006.

Home-Start is a service that offers support, friendship and practical help to parents with young children through volunteers who have gone through the ups and downs of parenthood themselves.

Home-Start supports parents as they grow in confidence, strengthen their relationships with their children and widen their support network in the local community to help give children the best possible start in life all over the world.

It was founded in 1973. No one involved in this unique parent-to-parent support service imagined that one local Home-Start in Leicester would be so effective and so popular with families that it would expand to more than 300 schemes within 30 years. It did and now the organisation is the UK’s leading family support charity and is expanding into even more areas of the UK and the world. The countries include Canada, Australia, Norway, Sri Lanka, Kenya, South Africa and Japan. Home-Start schemes are rooted in the communties they serve. They are managed locally, but are supported by the UK based organisation. This offers direction, training, information and guidance ensuring consistent and high-quality support for parents and children wherever they are. It has a proven, lasting, positive impact on the development of children and the health and welfare of the family.

Home-Start’s success secret is its dedicated volunteer parents. Volunteers could be of any age but they must be parents or have had a parenting experience. In some countries they are predominantly grandparents, in others they are young mothers who wish to use their time before engaging in full-time employment when their own children reach schoolage. In Uganda for example, volunteers are mainly Christians who are active in the Church and as a result, wish to volunteer. In Africa volunteering is usually faith-based. Home-Start has 70,000 volunteers around the world all dedicating their time free of charge. The organisation shares similar things in each county but could also be very different. The parent-to-parent philosophy is crucial.

In Malta, Home-Start operates within the communities of Cottonera, Kalkara, Fgura, Zabbar and Zejtun run by government welfare agency Appogg. Ms Stuttard said the local scheme, which currently runs with 13 Maltese volunteers, might eventually move towards becoming an independent NGO but there are various factors that ought to be considered before this major move takes place. Home-Start is run in various styles around the world. It could be run by churches, government agencies or other NGOs. She emphasised that Home-Start is not a programme but an organistation.

She added that Home-Start Malta committee is a very active one even in the international sphere. The committee contributes a lot to international debates. Since Home-Start Malta is relatively small compared to other countries it is important for it to have an international perspective and feel part of something larger. She added that the relationship between Home-Start and Agenzija Appogg is a model that could be encouraged in other countries and could be used to develop best practices. It is interesting that volunteers have a place on the organising committee were they can voice out their concerns and represent the needs of the families they work with.

Ms Stuttard explained that Home-Start volunteers support families of children who are under five years of age. Parents could ask Home-Start’s help for all sorts of reasons. Parents may be feeling isolated in their community, have no family nearby and be struggling to make friends. They might be finding it hard to cope because of a child’s physical or mental illness or have been hit hard by the death of a loved one. They could be struggling with emotional and physical demands of having twins or triplets - perhaps born into an already large family. The reasons are multiple.

The support offered by Home-Start volunteers depends on the volunteers’ creativity, remarked Ms Stuttard. It could be anything from helping a family with the shopping or errands, or offering support during the attendance of a child’s hospital appointments. Other parents just need a listening ear because they feel lonely. Volunteers help increase the confidence and independence of families by visiting families in their own homes to offer support, friendship and practical assistance. Being parents themselves, or having had parenting experience, they reassure service users that their childcare problems are not unusual or unique. Encouraging parents’ strengths and emotional well-being for the ultimate benefit of their children is also important for them to gain back their confidence and ultimatley trying to get the fun back into family life.

Volunteers strive to prevent families from falling into a crisis situation be it marital separation, mental or physical health reasons, siblings ending up in childrens’ homes or having addiction problems.

Asked whether Maltese families like the idea of having a stranger in the privacy of their own home, the Home-Start committee members explained that most families seeking their help would be initially hesitant but as the relationship between volunteer and family grows they become accepted. The Home-Start Organiser matches volunteer’s abilities with the family’s needs. The matching process is crucial – it is lengthy and ongoing. If a volunteer is not compatible with a family, then she or he is given another family to support.. Voluneers work with one family for around a year, but this depends on the needs of the family. Volunteers are provided with ongoing professional training and they are in turn supported by the Home-Start Organiser, and the Appogg professionals who are involved in Home-Start..



More information about Home-Start Malta is available on Appogg’s website www.appogg.gov.mt or via telephone number 2167 8043.



Agenzija Appogg forms part of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services, which also incorporates Agenzija Sedqa (www.sedqa.gov.mt) and Agenzija Sapport (www.sapport.gov.mt).