MIND MOVES: There is something exhilarating about a conference with the theme Real People, Real Lives. That's the title chosen by the voluntary organisation Home-Start for its national conference in Dundalk tomorrow. It captures the freshness of this organisation and its vision of how the real connections we form with one another - whether around our suffering or our joy - are life-giving.
Home-Start provides support, friendship and practical help to families with one or more children under five years of age. Volunteers visit families on a regular basis and try to respond to the needs of parents who are isolated, under financial pressure or simply exhausted by the challenge of raising small children without much support.
There is no set pattern to the visits, which can take place weekly or several times each week. For the family, it is not just the visit that is important, but the realisation that somebody really cares about them, and will turn up regularly and reliably.
The help Home-Start volunteers provide may be in listening to problems and worries, playing with children, attending to practical needs or simply letting parents know of the resources available to them in the community.
Being genuine is the key to truly helping others, so volunteers are encouraged to practice the art of understanding and awareness. It helps that they live and work in the same environment as the families they visit and that they are parents themselves.
A strong feature of the organisation is that many of the supported parents later choose to become volunteers themselves. They attend Home-Start's course of preparation and training, and avail of many opportunities for a continual learning process.
Home-Start's rationale is based on a simple but very important perception. Because most emotional and behavioural problems in early childhood are considered to be relational, there is general agreement that the focus of mental health interventions for children must be on improving parent-child relationships. Studies have repeatedly shown how supporting the mother-child bond results in an important shift towards feelings of security in the child.
This benefit extends through time with positive gains in intellectual and language development and fewer behavioural problems. We know this, but we have a long way to go in valuing and protecting the mother-child relationship. Home-Start believes that being there for parents in a spirit of trust, intimacy and fun increases the chance of parents becoming more fully involved with their children.
Founder Margaret Harrison recounts the story of the growth of Home-Start in her book Hooray! Here comes Tuesday (a quote from a child who waited, with great delight, the weekly visit of a volunteer). She describes one interaction that typifies how a child can benefit from someone simply respecting and supporting a mother with all her limitations:
"Jenny was on 'nerve tablets' and talked incessantly, while her three young children, without a toy in sight, sat on the bare floorboards, with frozen stares. When I introduced her, Viv the volunteer rolled up a discarded envelope and began rolling it to each child in turn, whilst listening intently to Jenny's woes. Eventually, one of the children rolled the paper bag to his mother. Jenny stopped talking, rolled it back to him, and was, I thought, interacting with him for the first time."
Three months after that episode, Margaret visited Jenny with the volunteer to see how things were going. The changes were striking. "We're more like sisters, Viv and me," beamed Jenny. She had come off her tablets, expressed pride in her children, and had begun to respond to them and their individual needs. After a full year of visits, the local speech therapist reported the boy's speech had developed beyond everyone's expectations.
The volunteer's presence is itself a statement that all is not well. There is, therefore, no need to keep up pretences with politeness and safe conversation. The aim is to bring support to difficult situations before they escalate into destructive scenarios.
It often happens that volunteers become privy to closely guarded secrets. Confidentiality is ensured unless parents direct otherwise. However, if a child is at risk, the volunteer will insist on accompanying a parent to seek professional help, or to involve whoever might be able to ensure the child's well-being.
The volunteer's work is finished when the family members feel more in control of their lives, when relationships are being worked at rather than suffered, and when the family has the confidence to use the resources available to them.
Home-Start is relatively new in this country and I anticipate it will grow and spread in the coming years. It represents a wonderful example of a community taking the initiative to meet the needs of its more vulnerable members. The immediate value of its work to parents is obvious but its benefit to the children in the long term is beyond measure.
tbates@irish-times.ie
For more information on Home-Start, email homestartireland@eircom.net or phone 01-4903237
• Dr Tony Bates is principal psychologist at St James's Hospital, Dublin.
