Our Family Start programme is a free and voluntary home visiting programme which provides support to expectant parents and parents of newborn and young children.
Our focus is the health, education, safety and development of the child and supporting parents to achieve their goals.
Family Start will help:
Our whānau workers are committed to working alongside families advocating, affirming and supporting parents in making positive choices for themselves and their children.
A Family Start whānau worker will visit you at home, starting with once a week, and get to know you, your child, partner and whānau. They will find out what parts of being a parent you’ve already got sorted and what you need help with.
They will also help you get the right health care for your child, support you to keep your baby safe, explain how your baby is growing and changing at different ages and help you work out what you want to achieve, change or improve. Your worker will also make a plan with you to help you get there, offering advice and ideas to help you solve problems.
Read the Family Start brochure for more information.
Unfortunately, due to government reprioritisation of funding, we are working through a proposed reduction of staff to our Dunedin Family Start programme. As our volumes are reduced, we are not accepting new Family Start referrals, while we work through this process. We will be in touch when we are able to accept new Family Start referrals.