Useful & Emergency Contacts for Families
Here are a selection of links & numbers for help offered by external services
Other Sources of Support
- Gingerbread’s Community Family Support Service: provides one-to-one and whole-family support for children aged 0–19 (and up to 25 with SEND), focusing on improving families’ wellbeing, stability and future opportunities. Contact 01782 344740.
- Staffordshire Children’s Advice and Support Service: If you have a serious concern about the safety or well-being of a child or young person, contact this service on 0300 111 8007 (option 1, then option 5) or the Emergency Duty Team on 0345 604 2886 for out-of-hours concerns.
Urgent Mental Health Support
- NHS Urgent Mental Health Helpline (North Staffordshire, including Moorlands): Call 0800 0 328 728 and choose option 1. This service covers all ages.
- Samaritans: A confidential, 24-hour crisis support helpline available 365 days a year. Call 116 123 for free from any phone.
- Shout: A free, confidential 24/7 text messaging support service for anyone in crisis. Text 85258.
- NHS 111: Call 111 to speak to a trained professional for help and support or use the NHS 111 online service.
Children and Young People Specific Support
- Childline: Offers a free, confidential helpline for children and young people under 19 at 0800 1111.
- YoungMinds: Provides services for parents and professionals and has a dedicated parents’ helpline on 0808 802 5544 (Monday to Friday, 9:30 am to 4 pm).
- Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) North Staffordshire: Support for young people experiencing emotional, behavioural, or mental health difficulties. Call 0300 123 0907 and choose option 4 (Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm).
- Chat Health: Parents/carers can text 07520 615 722 for advice from a public health nurse (Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm).
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Our Staffordshire Health App Finder offers safe and effective apps for everyone, from managing stress and health conditions to supporting you to achieve your healthy lifestyle goals like achieving a healthy weight or quitting smoking.
Why use the Staffordshire Health App Finder:
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- Trusted Source: Backed by Staffordshire County Council and the Organisation for the Review of Care and Health Apps (ORCHA)
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How it works
- Visit our free, easy to use app library, search a health topic, pick an app, and start your journey to better health.
- Healthcare professionals can also use app finder to send app recommendations directly to people they care for.
Ready to take control of your health?
Click the button below to find your perfect health app now. Your healthier, happier life in Staffordshire starts here!
To Home-Start, every family is special, and we respond to each family’s needs through a combination of home visiting, telephone and group support.
Home-Start Support
All parents struggle at one time or another. For some, the challenges can be greater. You are not alone.
Support from Home-Start
Being a parent has never been easy. It can be lonely, frustrating, and at times overwhelming. Anyone can face tough times and that’s why Home-Start Staffordshire Moorlands is here.
Home-Start Staffordshire Moorlands’ support is:
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- Completely free – you do not have to pay for anything.
- Entirely voluntary – you ask us for help and it is your choice whether to proceed with support.
- On your terms – you decide what kind of support suits you best.
- Non-judgmental – we’re here to listen and support you.
- Focussed on giving you the skills and confidence to be the parent you want to be, and to help you get the most out of family life.
- Focussed on ensuring your children have the support they need.
- Compassionate, confidential and individual.
How to get help
Home-Start Staffordshire Moorlands works in all parts of the Staffordshire Moorlands’ district with families who have at least one child under 5 years old. Families can find it hard to cope for a variety of reasons. For example, they may need help with :
- Isolation, loneliness and developing community links.
- Emotional health, wellbeing, confidence and self esteem.
- Child development, parenting skills and strategies.
- Post-natal illness.
- Disability, special needs or the diagnosis of a serious illness.
- Support with multiple births or several pre-school children.
- Access to local services, facilities, employment, education, housing and finances.
- The impact of domestic abuse.
- Bereavement and loss.
Please get in touch to discuss your situation and how we can help you. One of our staff members will get back to you to talk about your needs and complete a referral form with you. Before you contact us, you can double check that we are your local Home-Start (if you pay council tax to Staffordshire Moorlands District Council you are in our area).
Although we will do our best to help straight away, support is dependent on our capacity and there may be a wait for our services, due to demand.
We are unable to accept any more referrals.
Anybody can refer a family to Home-Start provided that the family give their consent and understand that a referral is being made. Families can also refer themselves, simply by giving us a call.
Home-Visiting
We match the needs of the family with a trained volunteer who provides friendship, emotional support and practical help. Support is free, confidential and non-judgemental. Volunteers usually visit a family for a couple of hours per week at an agreed time. They use their experience and understanding of family pressures to provide support. All volunteers are fully trained and vetted (including DBS checks) prior to being matched with a family.
Targeted Support
Alongside our Home-Visiting Service, we offer targeted support, where we provide specialist advice and / or signposting in the areas listed below. This support is usually for 4 – 6 weeks, delivered on a one-to-one basis.
Money Management
Do you struggle to manage your money?
We can support you to use budgeting tools, access other agencies (eg CAB or Step Change) and other debt services if needed; support you to book and attend appointments; support you with any paperwork, and / or; access the workstation at our office (desk with laptop, printer, scanner).
We can also signpost you to Beat the Cold / the Foodbank / the Household Support Fund / CIN Emergency Essentials or other funders.
Home Health
Are you overwhelmed with your home environment and don’t know where to start?
We can offer help with decluttering (eg motivation, tip runs and recycling) and support you to organise and feel on top of your home environment. We can also signpost you to repair workshops and apply for money to help with essential items of storage / furniture, if required.
Housing Support
We cannot get you a home, but we can support you to register with a housing association; upload documents; write supporting letters ; and / or, contact your housing officer if necessary.
We can also support you to book and attend appointments and support you to coordinate additional evidence from other services to add to an application.
Special Educational Needs (SEN) Support
We can provide emotional support if you have a child with SEN (Special Education Needs) or who is showing signs of SEN.
We can refer to CAHMS (the NHS services that assess and treat children and young people with emotional, behavioural or mental health difficulties), discuss EHCP process (Education, Health and Care Plan) and what it involves and support you to access other sources of help and support. We can also provide you with a pack of local support agencies and local places offering SEN sessions and provide support to access these.
Life Skills
Do you feel there are never enough hours in the day?
We can support you with meal planning, organising a shopping list, accompany you to supermarket, support you to cook from scratch and provide recipes cards if needed.
We can help you to organise your home admin and help you create routines to help you stay on top of life.
Community Connections
Do you feel disconnected to your community?
We can help you find out what is happening in your local area and / or support you to access groups and activities with your child.
Get ready for School or Nursery
Are you concerned that your child is not ready for school or nursery?
We can listen to your worries and offer support; suggest strategies and ideas involving play and development; and / or support you to make referrals to parenting programmes (eg Pram to Primary / Simply Babies).
We have supported Play and Stay groups at Home-Start where you talk to us about your concerns. We can support your family to access other community groups as well.
Your Wellbeing
Do you feel isolated and alone? Do you feel overwhelmed with family life?
We can help by linking you with someone to talk to about being a parent and / or support you with a referral to local wellbeing services.
Home-Start Staffordshire-Moorlands Groups
Please contact us if you’re interested in coming along to any of our groups.
Home-Start Groups
FREE ‘Craft and Play’ groups for babies and pre-school children currently run in Cheadle, Leek and Kingsley Holt.
Our Cheadle group is held at St Giles the Abbot, Church Street, Cheadle, ST10 1HU every Monday during term-time between 10.15 am to 11.45 am.
Our Leek group is held at The School Room (entrance via the back, car park side of our premises at School Yard, Earl Street, ST13 6JT) every Tuesday during term-time from 10.00 am to 11.30 am.
Our Kingsley Holt group is held at Kingsley Holt Centre, Churnet Valley Road, Kingsley Holt, ST10 2BQ every Thursday during term time from 10.00 am to 11.30 am.
We have the ‘First Friends’ Group for parents / carers and babies under a year that started in Spring 2025. The group will be held at The School Room (entrance via the back, car park side of our premises at School Yard, Earl Street, ST13 6JT) every Tuesday during term-time from 1.30 pm – 3.00 pm.
Later in 2025 we will be starting a *NEW* group in Leek for parents / carers who are expecting a baby “My Birth Partner and Me”. This is still in the planning stages, but it will probably take place at our premises in Leek on a Tuesday evening between 7.00 pm and 8.30 pm. The group will help new parents / carers get to know each other and we will have a special focus for each session, including birth, interacting with unborn babies and babies, baby massage, bathing, changing feeding and taking care of yourselves.
Contact us if you would like more information or if you’d like to be notified of start dates / information for any new groups.
Our Craft and Play group room at our office in Earl Street, Leek.
Bookstart Project
As part of our Bookstart Project we take resources from the BookTrust (books, finger puppets and nursery rhymes) to families’ homes and spend time with parents / carers and children having fun introducing the resources over three home visits.
Sharing books aids parent / child bonding, reduces stress and improves speech, language and development. The visits and resources are all free of charge.
Please contact us if you’re interested in taking part.
Testimonials
I feel that Home-Start helped me like no other service. They helped me with everything really. Physically, encouraging me to get out of the house and go places, mentally, listening to my problems and concerns, supporting me through some really hard times. I’m much more likely to speak to other people now whereas before I would not get involved.
Home-Start have been really helpful and supportive, without being judgemental. My mum had concerns that it would be like Social Services and that the family would be made to feel they were being monitored and assessed all the time. I said that there was none of this, just genuine care, and the advice I’ve (been) given has been priceless … Having Home-Start involvement meant I had someone to offload to when I needed it the most. I’m definitely more able to cope with family life now.
I found Home-Start really friendly and helpful. It’s not easy to ask for help, but I feel very lucky I was able to access Home-Start support.
(My Family Support Worker) was just a phone call away, she would know straight away if I was having a bad day with the kids, she would come in and put the kettle on and immediately start to calm things down.
The support, being listened to, not being judged, being able to offload to someone, to have that support from someone outside the family was really lovely to have that professionalism. Someone to help you find out the avenues to go down. It’s brilliant it really is. Thank you so much for the service!
Become a Home-Start Volunteer Today
Home-Start’s team of trained volunteers make sure a child’s early years count. By volunteering just a few hours each week you can transform the lives of young children and their parents in your community.