History of Home-Start Horizons
The Home-Start movement was born in Leicester in 1973 and spawned a national and worldwide movement of Home-Starts. Home-Start Horizons (formerly Home-Start Leicester) still delivers services to families in Leicester (and Leicestershire & Rutland) and we are proud to have survived and thrived as a Charity, through five challenging decades, most recently with austerity and now another Cost of Living Crisis, impacting families and children.
We were founded by Margaret Harrison who believed that supporting a family was best done in their home where it can be shaped to the needs of the family. She realised that if parents get support and friendship from another parent, they will be better equipped to learn to cope with the many difficulties life can bring and will be able to give their children the best possible start to their own lives.
While this idea remains at the heart of our work, we have created new ways of helping parents and their children to meet the changing needs of families.
This idea that started in Leicester, has subsequently spread across the UK and is now a movement around the world. There are now 22 countries on five continents that have Home-Starts providing support for families.
Margaret remained life president of Home-Start until her death in 2015.
“Services like this are brilliant. We want as a nation to ensure that all vulnerable families have the most help in promoting that [vital] link between themselves and their babies. ”
–Frank Field MP