Home-Start Guildford

There for parents when they need us most, because childhood can't wait

About Us

Home-Start Guildford is part of one of the UK’s leading family support charities Home-Start UK which has 180 schemes in the UK and over 16,000 volunteers who visit families with at least one child under five in their own homes.

Our service is preventative. “It is better to prevent failure than tackle a crisis later and by working with other agencies we often prevent the need for more costly intervention by Social Service.”

Home-Start Guildford was established in 1997, and is based in Burpham, Guildford. The Manager leads a team of six staff (2 full-time and 4 part-time). They run the scheme under the guidance of a board of volunteer trustees and advisers and supported by the national organisation – Home-Start UK.

We run three family Family Groups. One operates at Pirbright Army Base on Tuesday mornings to support service families and the other two are held at The Guildford Family Centre on Hazel Avenue, Bellfields on Tuesday afternoons and Thursday mornings. All run during term time with some special events offered during the school holidays. The Pirbright Family Group has been running successfully since 2007 and the Hazel Avenue Groups since April 2021.

Our Vision: “Home-Start wants to see a society in which every parent has the support they need to give their children the best possible start in life.”

Our 7 members of staff work closely with a network of over 50 home-visiting volunteers. In the last year for the period 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025 we supported 147 families in the Guildford Borough including 6 army families at the Pirbright Family Group.

Some of the staff from Home-Start Guildford

Staff: Natalie, Lorraine, Sandra, Frankie, Amel, Ali and Louisa.

Trustees:
Robert McCall (Chair), Hilary Nicolls (Treasurer and Vice Chair), Charlotte French, Vicky Roberton, Marian Holliday, Sarah Pearson, Bryan Phillips and Phil Graham.

Annual Report

You can download our Annual Report
for the period ending March 2025 by following the link to our
HS Guildford Impact Report 2024-25

Or you can follow the link to our full financial
Annual Report & Accounts 2024-25

In this Report you will find details of the many Trusts, Foundations, Companies and individuals who have supported us over the year.

Charities Commision

In April 2014 Home-Start Guildford became a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, registered charity number 1154609. Prior to this the charity was registered as number 1054644 and the March 2013 accounts are submitted under this number. This last year’s accounts can be located here on the Charities Commission website.

Privacy Notice

Click here to view our Privacy Notice.

History of Home-Start Guildford

For a potted history of Home-Start Guildford we have prepared a PDF document which you can download here: Potted History July 2025

Patrons

Cllr. Sallie Barker MBE, Sabine Bates, Jane Derbyshire, Diana Jones, Ruth Jubert BEM, Rob Kelly, Rt Hon Anne Milton, Claire Porter and Hugh Shanks.

Home Visiting

Home-Start Guildford recruits and trains local volunteers and carefully matches a volunteer to visit a family in their own home for two to three hours a week. All of the families we support must have at least one child under five. Visit our Home Visiting Volunteer webpage for more information.

AGM 2017 with Patrons Mayor and Mayoress of Guildford (centre)

Families Tell Us

“The good thing about having a volunteer is having a friend who helps you with the day to day running of the family, able to listen, share and help solve family problems.

“I’ve had lots of dealings with other organisations for my daughter’s needs but they don’t run half as well as this organisation”

“If it hadn’t been for my volunteer, we wouldn’t be a family any more.”

“Home-Start never pushed anything on me I always felt things were my decisions I felt fully involved in the support I had”

“Other agencies provide clinical support without the caring, Home-Start provides both the appropriate support and the caring side”

“My volunteer helped me directly through her advice and indirectly rebuilding my self-confidence. She helped me to believe in myself and to think positively to tackle even the most complicated problems and to understand my sons without becoming angry.”

“The help and support I’ve received is honestly worth its weight in gold.”

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