CoRe 2018 Case Study - The Parent House

The charity:

The Parent House is a charity set up to enable parents and carers of children to enter employment and enhance their qualifications, knowledge and well-being. The Parent House has training, computer and communal rooms, a crèche, and a community garden. Services include bespoke support for parents and carers, 1-1 mentoring, free workshops and accredited training for individuals to deliver support in their local communities.

The project:

Following previous attempts to address this, The Parent House was seeking support to clearly define and articulate its vision, values and services for both internal use and external marketing. This was needed to establish internal agreement and coherence along with an accurate account of the organisation’s impact in the borough.

Impact and added value provided by the volunteers:

• The FAQ sheet and collation of impact statistics has reduced the time needed on grant applications

• One of the volunteers brought in their partner to work on an IT matter that will reduce costs and operational issues for The Parent House

• Recommendations have reaffirmed a lot of the excellent things The Parent House are already doing, giving them confidence to explore additional developments

The volunteer team brought in a colleague from another CoRe project team to support future engagement

Why this project was effective:

• Timelines were realistic and considered potential obstacles, including The Parent House’s annual summer closure

• The volunteers invested a lot of time to understand previous work and efforts related to the objectives

The Parent House had one lead contact within the volunteer team, reducing communication demands and misinterpretation

“I was pleasantly surprised at how well the volunteers were able to understand The Parent House and get their heads around it all”

“Some of the ideas they’ve come up with have been amazing and could make a huge difference”

The volunteers’ experience:

1. What were your personal highlights of the programme?

“The Parent House was so welcoming and treated us as if we were a part of the organisation from day one. They were open to our suggestions and new ideas but we also always received constructive feedback helping to shape our outputs.”

2. What was the best thing about working as a volunteer team and using your skills differently through this programme?

“The combined effort of our skills and backgrounds helped us to make more informed decisions and outcomes and it was great to know that simple, well-practised skills for us can make a difference to a smaller organisation with less time or expertise.”

For more information on the full CoRe programme visit our CoRe pages. If you'd like to access CoRe for your organisation get in touch with info@thebigalliance.org.uk