Family support: Friends preferred over professionals
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Parents prefer support from family or friends rather than professionals, according to a survey published this week.
The survey found that while three quarters of parents would seek supportfrom family, friends or neighbours, fewer than half of the 582 parentsquestioned would consult childminders, health visitors or TVprogrammes.
Volunteering charity Timebank commissioned the research to launch itsReal Parents campaign and help Home-Start recruit more volunteers tosupport struggling parents. A spokeswoman for Timebank said parentswould not view the volunteers as professionals because they were "realpeople".
She added that the main qualification for volunteers was that they hadto be parents themselves and many of the volunteers had had their ownparenting troubles.
