In November 2023, Jeremy Spafford (Associate Director, OFS) was invited to present at the Oxford City Council’s thriving communities event in Rose Hill. In it, he discussed our Meaningful Measurement work, but what struck him the most was the presentation that followed.
Katharine Barber is the CEO of Home-Start Oxford, and talked about how Storytelling had not only helped them learn, but also shifted the dial fundamentally in how they approach their work, changed their organisational culture and had led them to receive more funding.
We decided it was only right to have a chat with Katharine to find out more about the impact of Storytelling on Home-Start.
A decade ago, Katharine moved to Oxford with her young family. She felt that she needed a place to talk about her parenting struggles and found Home-Start. She began her journey as a volunteer, then a trustee, and today, she is the CEO of the whole organisation.
Home-Start Oxford is an independent charity who support families in Oxford, central and west Oxfordshire. Founded in 1988, they’re part of a UK-wide Home-Start network, providing expert help, and support by trained volunteers for families with children under 5, starting in the home.
Confidentiality is a key principle of their work - families are reaching out for help at their toughest times, and building relationships of trust and no judgement is essential. This led to a natural caution in sharing the experiences of ‘Home-Start’ families.
When family stories were shared anonymously, transcribed by staff based on quotes from parents or children, it risked being covert, and there was a nervousness about how widely they could be used. Katharine felt it was important to share the complexity of family life, struggle and progress against the odds, that the team witness in the privacy of home visits, but were lacking the tools to bring parents into this process as partners. So, when the team heard about Storytelling, they were keen to give it a try.
The relationships Home-Start builds are incredibly special.
Over 60 families are supported in the home each year, and carefully matched with one of their 50 volunteers. Each family is unique and the support is as individual as they are. Home-Start needed an approach that helped to communicate this diversity, understand the detail of how these relationships enable families to make positive change.
Katharine says that the Storytelling process has been transformational in empowering the team and those sharing their stories. They have captured a depth of experience and feedback that they had never captured before because the Storytelling approach provides a safe and respectful space. She said, “now, we can have one parent reach out to another parent through their story. Their message resonates because they have a shared language.”
Far from being a covert process, families are telling us they are glad to be able to use their experience to help others, and feel hugely proud when they reflect on how far they have come.
It’s also been motivating for the volunteers who are typically very humble people, who will often remark ‘I don’t feel I’ve done very much’. The heartfelt appreciation, in a parent's own words, has helped to change all that, and demonstrate what a significant catalyst for change they have been. For one family, it was a series of small acts of kindness over many months that had the biggest impact. “What seemed like small things to the volunteer, cumulatively made a massive difference to the parent and her children.”
The stories collected show a different side to the volunteer support that Home-Start provides, and enriched their learning about impact. She says, “We've used Storytelling to reflect three times now with our donors and partners in relation to our Growing Minds project in Littlemore, which has always been a highlight of these ‘Learning Days’. I find that it has helped really move the needle, when it comes to funders/decision-makers understanding what the issues are in real life, when trying to make meaningful change on a problem like the disadvantage gap in education.”
More recently, Katharine had the opportunity to share a family story with health partners. Those mum’s words illustrated powerfully how ‘humble’ volunteer support had helped address multiple challenges that the NHS would have struggled to alleviate, and set the family on a positive course. That meeting set in train an invitation to tender that has led to Home-Start being . a commissioned part of the Healthy Child 0-19 service in Oxfordshire for the next 5 years.
Katharine believes that cascading the Storytelling process to other parts of the country is what’s needed next. In just over 35 years, Home-Start Oxford has helped 3000+ families and 6000+ children. Imagine the moments we can capture with Storytelling at the helm.
