Volunteer Family Support

A service for parents of young children, where the family is partnered with a trained and locally supervised volunteer, who provides one-on-one support in the family’s home or other safe space.

Volunteer Family Support is a universal free service to parents with babies and young children up to eight years of age. The program is aimed at parents who, for various reasons, are stressed and anxious. Those reasons may include a lack of social support and isolation, difficulty adjusting to parenthood, multiple births, or a child with a disability.

Eligible families who choose to use the program are linked to trained volunteers, known as Community Parents, who live locally and are usually parents themselves. Once linked to a family the Community Parents visit for around two hours weekly to offer support, information and friendship. This may continue for up to 12 months.

Community Parents complete a comprehensive training program before being linked to a family. Good Beginnings volunteers are carefully selected for their personal qualities, such as empathy, patience and a respectful, non-judgmental approach to others. They are supported and supervised by a professional Program Coordinator who also provides the initial and ongoing training.

The intended outcome of the program is for parents to become more confident in their parenting role. Volunteers facilitate this by connecting parents to other parents and other support resources available in their local community, such as playgroups and health care services. The program also aims to model positive parenting practices that enhance the parent-child relationship and encourage childhood development.

As our programs are flexible and responsive to community needs, Volunteer Family Support can be extended to include hospital visits to new parents, assistance in attending playgroup, and phone support.