“epidemic of disconnection”<\/a> that disrupted family life.<\/p>\nAs well as offering somewhere for children to play, Home-Start provides emotional and practical support for parents who may be struggling.<\/p>\n
Jasmine, who spoke with the princess during her visit, said it had been “just an amazing experience”, and that it was “easy to forget that she’s a mum just like us”.<\/p>\n
“I was able to share with her my experiences of being a parent and it was nice to talk about how Home-Start has really re-lit a spark in me,” Jasmine said.<\/p>\n
“Home-Start has encouraged me every step of the way – they’ve worked with me to overcome so much and it’s meant the world to us,” she added.<\/p>\n
Another mum, Lisa said she had spoken to Catherine about “what bringing up young children is like and how important groups like this are”. <\/p>\n
“The group is something we look forward to every week – I’ve met friends here which is obviously great for me but I’ve also watched how our children have developed, and that’s really important,” she added.<\/p>\n
Catherine launched the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood in 2021, with the aim of raising awareness and gathering research evidence about the importance of the first few years of a child’s life. <\/p>\n
In her essay published ahead of Thursday’s visit, the princess wrote: “While digital devices promise to keep us connected, they frequently do the opposite.”<\/p>\n
Smartphones and gadgets have become a “constant distraction, fragmenting our focus” and undermining the time that families spend together, she added.<\/p>\n
Home-Start Oxford’s CEO Katharine Barber said: “There’s such synergy between that message about connection and compassionate, caring support for young children and the role that we provide at Home-Start.”<\/p>\n
“Our volunteers are living and breathing that, day in day out,” she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mums who are supported by an Oxford charity said it was an “amazing experience” to share their stories…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-202717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}