Family support charity Home-Start has announced that its founder and life president Margaret Harrison CBE passed away at home on 16 August.

Harrison, born 1938, founded the charity in Leicester in 1973. She led the charity for 25 years, as it spread from the East Midlands to all four corners of the UK and into British Forces bases in Germany and Cyprus.

In 1998 Harrison founded Home-Start International in response to requests from more than 22 other countries wishing to adopt the Home-Start approach.

Home-Start provides volunteer support for parents of young children. Today the charity supports more than 33,000 families and 70,000 children each year in the UK, in 288 local communities. Another 45,000 families are supported in 22 countries around the world.

Harrison was awarded an OBE in 1989 and a CBE in 2001.

Chief executive Rob Parkinson said Harrison was actively involved in the charity, including regularly engaging with him, attending the Home-Start international Convention in Oslo in 2014, and accepting as many invitations to speak at the AGMs of local Home-Starts as she could.

“Most recently she agreed to judge an award in her name for outstanding family support amongst Home-Start volunteers,” Parkinson said. “The fact that she was doing this as her own health faltered and recovered, and while she cared increasingly for Basil, her beloved husband of more than four decades, is testament to her phenomenal energy, kindness and resilience.”

Home-Start chair James Sainsbury said the 25 years of Harrison’s leadership at the charity “seemed blessed”.

“There was patronage from Princess Diana and then Princess Alexandra; endorsement of Home-Start’s approach from archbishops, authors such as Sue Townsend, academics, army colonels, ministers and prime ministers; and constant enquiries from groups wanting to set up a Home-Start in their community; recognising the immense value of the approach. Always, at the heart of the charity, were children and families.”

Harrison is survived by her husband Basil, her children Jane, David, and Clare, and grandchildren Rhianna and Laura, Oran and Rowan.

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