00:12Hello, I'm Jessica Callan, the editor of Hello! magazine and I'm on my way to meet Harriet
00:17Phillips to talk about becoming a patron of Homestart Cotswolds and for us to do our photo
00:22shoot and interview with her. So Harriet, you are now a patron for Homestart Cotswolds. Yes. Could
00:34you tell me more about it? Yeah, well Homestart Cotswolds is a local independent charity.
00:42It was founded in 2005. They provide parent trained volunteers to go into families where
00:49there might be a need. So you might have an isolated parent or parents facing mental health
00:55challenges or any other sort of difficulty with parental pressures and the volunteer comes
01:01alongside the family and the family will normally have babies or young children. I guess it's really
01:07important for me because I have first-hand experience with working with this charity
01:12and it's a real honour to be included and asked.
01:24When did you first encounter Homestart Cotswolds? Many years ago whilst working as a nurse in
01:29Gloucestershire. I've really seen the value added of having these volunteers. They also run some
01:36community-based groups locally as well, particularly for parents that might be,
01:41mothers in particular, that might be experiencing postnatal depression. So their baby and me group.
01:51What will your work with them entail? I'll be able to visit some of these groups. I'll be able to
01:56attend some of their meetings. Yeah, I hope that part of what I do is going to shine a light
02:02on the valuable work that they do in promoting sort of good mental health with young babies and children.
02:13How important is this to you with your background as a nurse and in the areas that you've worked in?
02:20It's where my passion lies. Just making sure that all babies have an opportunity to have good experiences
02:28experiences as they grow up and as their brains develop. It's the biggest indicator of sort of good outcomes.
02:35So that's why I'm so passionate about it. And how can people find out more about Homestart Cotswolds?
02:41Um, so they have good social media platform and they have a website
02:46and so you'll be able to look them up and see what they're doing locally.
02:59How many people find out more about Homestart Cotswolds?
03:02Right now they're going to play
03:05Once she has a childhood birthing up.
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