The philosophical base of Homebuilders is detailed in the objectives outlined in the organisations Constitution and a Practice Research project carried out into the values and way of working used by the organisation.

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The Homebuilders Constitution states that Homebuilders goals are:

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• To provide home based and community support services for any family under stress or in crisis, to enable them to remain intact, empowering them to function independently or with a small amount of appropriate support. 

•  To assist family members to develop their own strengths, to develop appropriate living skills and to increase their ability to effectively use their family or community support systems. 

• To provide practical and positive support to help strengthen families and so prevent the need for children to be cared for outside the family. 

• To provide trained family practitioners who work alongside families, offering a combination of parenting education, befriending, coaching, counselling support, childcare support, advocacy, basic budgeting advice, practical help and links to family and community resources or more specialist services when necessary. 

• To provide a service where families under stress can refer themselves or be referred by groups working to promote the welfare of children and their families. 

• To achieve the above objectives. Homebuilders offers a wide range of services which can “wrap around” a family under stress and work alongside that family and support them to create the future they seek for themselves. 

• To ensure that families are able to seek the assistance they require at an early stage and receive the assistance they need until issues are resolved, all our services are free of charge.”

 

 

“Practice Research” carried out to look at the way we work and the reasons we do things the way we do, identified the following key philosophical points to Homebuilders approach:

 

• Social justice, equity to achieve equality, fairness, respect, kindness, treating people with “positive regard”, normalising human difficulties, avoiding shame and blame, promoting social justice –by challenging organisations and processes which affect the powerless.

• Respecting the dignity of everyone we work alongside. Fair access to resources for everybody.

• A core belief for Homebuilders Family Services is that with support, families have the ability to heal themselves.

 

Homebuilders Family Services way of working can be summarised as:

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Making our service available and accessible; - home based, holding professional boundaries without professional distance, working to families own goals. Visiting people in their own home to help create an informal and trusting environment in which to work.

Key elements of this way of working include:

• creating sustained trust through building rapport and being consistent and congruent.

•  minimising barriers to engagement (e.g., quick response times, providing free services and, offering home visits).

• genuineness and positive regard for the people we are working alongside.

• offering a wraparound service, understanding the whole picture.

• working on the issues the family wants to work on and at the speed they want to work at.

• building on the family’s strengths and helping instil hope.

• reviewing progress and celebrating good outcomes.

 

In practice we aim to express these values through:

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• Timely responses to requests for support – you matter.

• Create the space for workers to reflect and learn from the work, support each other, build strong collegial relationships, engage in robust conversations about the agency and its services.

• The presence this agency has in the community contributes to low stigma in seeking assistance and leading to a high level of self-referral and referral from family/friends.

• Avoiding shame and normalising seeking support

• Building relationships with people and being real in order to minimise the “them and us” feelings.

• Boundaries that honour and respect the families and maintain the safety and wellbeing of our workers, without being precious about it.