A Day in the Life: Home-Start Team Manager
Welcome to our ‘Day in the Life’ blog series where we interview a Home-Start colleague to reflect on their role and experience with their local Home-Start in London.
For our first interview, we had the wonderful opportunity to speak with Becca Jones, the Team Manager at Home-Start Southwark. Becca shared some incredible insights into her role, Home-Start Southwark’s mission, and the profound impact they have on families. Here are the highlights of our conversation:
Introduce yourself: Who are you and what is your role at Home-Start Southwark?
I am Becca Jones, the team manager here at Home-Start Southwark. My role is to manage the team of family support coordinators and to lead the strategic direction of our workers around family support.
Tell us a bit about the work of Home-Start Southwark: where do you work and what kind of work do you do? We have worked in Southwark for 28 years now. And in the past years, we started working in Lewisham as well. Our Lewisham project is still in the early days and more of a pilot project at the moment, but our aim is that in the future we will be operating a fully functioning Home Start in both boroughs. The core of what we do is matching volunteers who have had challenging life experiences themselves or who have relevant experiences in supporting children and families. We match volunteers with families who are struggling for one reason or another. The thing that I think makes us really special and unique is that we work alongside families. We don’t presume that we know better than them. We presume that they’re the experts on their own lives and they know the direction they want the support to take. And we’re just here to give that a little bit of help that we all need sometimes.
So, what we support families with really varies. Sometimes it’s practical things like support to get out of the house and use community services, playing with their children, or helping their children’s development. Sometimes it’s more emotional support, like helping people who are struggling with their mental health or people who are isolated and need somebody to talk to. Sometimes it’s those things that are around people’s lives that prevent them from doing the best for their family, such as financial problems, housing problems, or struggling with their situation because of their immigration status. We look at not only the families’ needs and the children’s needs but also fundamentally how the parents’ well-being and needs affect the child or the children. We work out some key working objectives of things that we can support a family with within the time that we’re with them.
If you had to describe your role in 3 words, what would they be?
Oh wow, I’m not very good at using a few words. I think my role is varied, rewarding, and busy every day. I’m struggling to fit in all the things that I need to do.
What made you join Home-Start Southwark?
I’ve been with Home-Start Southwark for 8 years now. I initially joined to lead the perinatal project, working with pregnant women and families with young babies. Before that, I had always worked in the charity sector but had to leave my previous job after I had my first baby because there was no flexible work, and I couldn’t get back part-time or have flexible hours there. Having my first baby wasn’t easy for me. My mental health wasn’t great, and my mom was very ill as well. She had a heart transplant when my baby was really young. So, we experienced a lot of difficult circumstances going on, and that’s when the job at Home-Southwark came up. I could really identify with how important the type of service they run is, and it fitted well with my previous experience working in charities. I’ve always believed in the power of community and people helping people.
Describe a typical day in your role:
As for a typical day, there is no typical day, really. My job is quite varied, and I still have a caseload of a small number of families, so I still do some direct work as well. So, a portion of my day will be working with the families that I support or supervising the volunteers. That can be really varied, from signposting them to things, doing volunteer supervision, or being with a family to do stuff. Another massive part of my job is about supporting the staff team here. The family support coordinators have quite big caseloads and work with a real variety of families facing many different problems. That can be emotionally difficult and challenging at times, so it’s important that they are getting the support they need. I spend a lot of my time supervising or talking to my staff about what’s going on for them and their families and helping them work out the next steps for difficult situations. There are also parts of my day that involve writing, providing information for fundraising bids, reports to funders, or meeting with funders to tell them about what we do and what we’ve achieved. I manage all the incoming referrals as well, so when other agencies refer families to us, it’s my job to determine if they are suitable families for us to work with and process all of that through our database. I also have a role in promoting our service and engaging with key partners, such as social workers, health visitors, midwives, and others who might refer families to us. Building relationships with other professionals and attending meetings about different strategies that are going on locally are also part of my work.
What would you say is the most rewarding part of your work?
I would say there’s a couple of things. One thing is that I find many of the mothers we work with incredibly inspiring because they are going through challenging things and are showing real strength and resilience in how they deal with things. I identify with that as a mother, and I find it incredibly rewarding when people get to the end of their journeys with us, and you can see the difference that has been made. Even simple things like giving somebody a little bit of time each week can make a huge difference to people. It’s rewarding when we get to the end of a journey with a family, and we can see the difference that has been made or they give us feedback about the positive changes in their lives.
The other thing I find really rewarding is seeing volunteers progress and become part of our staff team. We’ve taken on 2 people recently. So, seeing people’s journeys and how investing time in people can be valuable not just for our families but for our volunteers and staff team is also very rewarding.
Looking ahead, what are your hopes for the future in the work you are doing?
My hope is that we can continue doing what we’re doing and do it well. We’re operating in a challenging context where the value of charitable work, especially work that’s hard to measure, isn’t always recognised. I strongly believe in the core of what we do and giving time to people. My main hope is that we can continue to provide support to families without imposing strict criteria or restrictions on who can access our services. I hope we can empower people and continue to recruit many more volunteers to support the families coming to us.
What would you like people to do after reading this article?
From a broader perspective, I would like people to notice the parents in their lives, especially parents of young children who may be going through difficult times. I’d like people to look within their friendship circles, families, and communities to identify people who need help and offer support because friendship and spending time with people can make a huge difference. Supporting each other is essential, no matter where you are in your life or what you want to achieve. People are crucial in helping you get there. So, I’d like everyone to be more mindful of who in their circles might need support.
I would also like people to consider volunteering. It can be rewarding not only in terms of the positive feelings it brings but also in terms of career development. Additionally, financial donations are valuable to us as our work is becoming more complex, and we’re seeing more families with multiple problems and less available support.