Volunteer Support for Mothers with New Babies: Perceptions of Need and Support Received

MacPherson, Kristen; Barnes, Jacqueline; Nichols, Michelle; Dixon, Sharon

doi:10.1111/j.1099-0860.2009.00227.x

Cited by 12 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…In addition, the level of social support within the home available at 2 months appeared to be a protective factor against depression for all the families in the study. Qualitative reports indicate that the most valued aspect of the volunteer involvement was the practical assistance with childcare or household chores that might otherwise come from a family member (MacPherson et al. 2009) so it may be useful to find out about the presence of extended family members when conducting outreach to identify families who could benefit from a preventative offer of support from a volunteer, as it may need to be in addition to more formal support such as extra visits from a health visitor or a primary mental health professional rather than as an alternative.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Enthusiasm was greater at the national level in the organization than in local (independently run) Home‐Start groups, whose personnel also change quite frequently so initial agreement was followed in some cases by poor communication with new local staff. Local organizational capacity has been highlighted by the families receiving Home‐Start support as a potential source of problems (MacPherson et al. 2009) and this applied to the process of involving families in the study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2006a for more details) Volunteers and families jointly decide on needs and then on the frequency, length and nature of the visits, and how long the support should continue 2 . They may engage in a number of different activities, providing company, assistance with childcare or other household tasks, going out on joint trips to local facilities, or giving parenting advice (see MacPherson et al. 2009).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The utility of volunteer home‐visiting support to prevent maternal depression in the first year of life

Barnes

Senior

MacPherson

2009

Child

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The utility of volunteer home‐visiting support to prevent maternal depression in the first year of life

Barnes

Senior

MacPherson

2009

Child

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“…Rather, until now, relevant support from those kinds of projects comes from qualitative, narrative accounts of mothers’ or home visitors’ feelings and experiences. Uniformly, these accounts reflect the centrality of the home visitor–client “bond” for gains within postpartum HV projects by peers (e.g., Lovett, Palamaro Munsell, McNamara, & Doyle, ; MacPherson, Barnes, Nichols, & Dixon, ; McLeish, & Redshaw, ; Paris & Dubus, ; Small et al., ; Taggart, Short, & Barclay, ). On these bases, our hypothesis was:…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predictors of Self‐reported Gains in a Relationship‐based Home‐visiting Project for Mothers After Childbirth

Kaitz

Chriki

Tessler

et al. 2018

Infant Mental Health Journal

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We assessed mothers' self-reported gains from a postpartum home-visiting (HV) project in which home visitors are volunteer mothers from the community. Hypotheses were that gains are positively related to (a) mothers' felt-closeness with their home visitor, (b) mothers' level of sociodemographic risk, and (c) the home visitors' preproject training in support services for families or children (Professionalism). One hundred sixty-four clients returned written evaluations of the HV project. Items assessing gains were reduced to two factors: Improved Well-Being ("Self") and Improved Infant Care ("Infant"). Repeated measures general linear models, with Gains (Self, Infant) as the repeated measure, and multiple regression analyses evaluated the hypotheses. Across the sample, gains on both factors were moderate, although gain scores were higher regarding Self than for Infant. Results show that (a) Mothers' felt-closeness with their volunteer was strongly related to mothers' gains; (b) high-risk mothers gained more from the project than did mothers of lower risk, particularly regarding Infant Care; and (c) mothers visited by volunteers who were professionals reported more substantial gains than did mothers visited by volunteers who were not professionals. Findings can help explain variance in mothers' gains from such projects and could be useful in improving their efficacy.

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“…It should be noted, however, that community volunteers may not have a marked impact on clinical outcomes such as maternal postnatal depression, which may be more appropriately addressed by professional services [28] and volunteer support needs to be provided within the context of well-developed guidance and supervision [29]. The small number of studies that examine volunteering in the context of family support programs suggest that volunteers experience positive outcomes such as increased knowledge and skills, a stronger sense of social cohesion, reduced loneliness and isolation, and an improved sense of purpose and confidence [10].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Volunteer Support for Families With Young Children: Protocol for the Volunteer Family Connect Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

Grace¹,

Kemp²,

Barnes³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Background: Use of community volunteers to support vulnerable families is a widely employed strategy with a long history. However, there has been minimal formal scientific investigation into the effectiveness of volunteer home visiting programs for families. There is also a need for research examining whether this form of community participation leads to improved outcomes for volunteers. This paper describes the research protocol for a pragmatic randomised controlled trial (RCT) of the Volunteer Family Connect intervention, a volunteer home visiting program designed to support families of young children who experience social isolation and/or a lack of parenting confidence and skills. The project is being conducted in partnership with three leading not-for-profit organisations, designed to contribute to the body of evidence that informs decisions about appropriate family support services according to level of need. It is the first study to examine both outcomes for the families and for the volunteers who deliver the service. Methods:The RCT is being conducted in seven sites across Australia. We aim to recruit 300 families to the study, 150 control (services as usual), and 150 intervention (services as usual + volunteer home visiting) families. Intervention families receive the service for between 3 and 12 months according to need, and all participants complete six data collection points over 15 months. A minimum of 80 volunteers will also be recruited, along with a matched community comparison group. Volunteers will complete three data collection points over 12 months. Primary outcomes include community connectedness and parenting competence. Secondary outcomes include parent physical and mental health, BACKGROUNDVolunteer home visiting is a widely adopted community-based approach to support families, linking vulnerable and/or isolated families to trained volunteers from their local community who have experience in parenting and/or caring for children. Volunteer home visiting programs can take different forms, with many seeking to support families by helping them strengthen their social and community networks, providing families with connections to appropriate local health, welfare and education services and support information [1].Volunteers may also work with parents to increase their parenting confidence, encourage positive parent-child relationships, share local knowledge and foster a sense of belonging and community resilience [2]. Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model [3,4] emphasises that building resilience in both parents and the communities in which they live is critical to achieving family physical, mental and social wellbeing. Bronfenbrenner described a complex and dynamic web of relationships that exist between children, their families, the settings in which children participate, and the wider community. Child health and wellbeing outcomes are seen to be strongly influenced by the many social and environmental contexts that operate within a child's life. Factors across contextual layers acc...

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Volunteer Support for Mothers with New Babies: Perceptions of Need and Support Received

Cited by 12 publications

References 10 publications

The utility of volunteer home‐visiting support to prevent maternal depression in the first year of life

The utility of volunteer home‐visiting support to prevent maternal depression in the first year of life

Predictors of Self‐reported Gains in a Relationship‐based Home‐visiting Project for Mothers After Childbirth

Community Volunteer Support for Families With Young Children: Protocol for the Volunteer Family Connect Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)

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