What is a Host Home or Overnight Caregiver?

The best place for a child is with their family, but parents with high needs kids get exhausted. As a Kinnections’ Overnight Caregiver (Host Home), you open your home to kids who need extra support. Maybe for a weekend or maybe just one night, you give their families a break to help them be as strong as possible. You can be the difference between a kid staying with their family or having to move to an out-of-home placement.
As a host home provider, you:
  • Are warm and supportive, and believe you could help a child in need
  • Are optimistic and positive in your approach to problems
  • Are comfortable working with complex family systems
  • Are a strong and practical communicator
  • Are willing to support a child’s culture and spiritual beliefs
  • Are able and willing to attend lots of training to increase your skills
  • Are willing to work hard as a team member with an excellent company
  • Are willing to go the extra mile to make a child’s life better
  • Are willing to work with both the child and the child’s family
  • Are open to learning how to raise children with no physical punishment
  • Are keen to learn about different ways to positively manage children’s behavior
  • Understand that children in care have experienced trauma, and can be patient with them
  • Have a clean and welcoming home, with a private bedroom and enough space
  • Have some experience in a caregiver role, either supervising or raising children
  • Have a reasonably flexible schedule to allow for kid-related meetings and appointments
  • Have a stable family and haven’t experienced any big changes over the last year
  • Are single, a couple, stay-at-home or working outside the home
  • Have a reliable income that doesn’t depend on this income to meet your financial needs
Requirements to be a host home provider:
  • Be a Canadian citizen/permanent resident status and entitled to work in Canada
  • Be a mature adult
  • Have adequate space in the home for another child, including a separate bedroom
  • Be able to communicate fluently in verbal and written English
  • Have a valid driver’s license
  • Rent or own a residence that meets Children’s Services standards re cleanliness and repair
  • Provide a Criminal Record Check, Child Intervention Record Check, and a Driver’s Abstract
  • Have Child & Youth Care education and/or experience (not mandatory, but helpful)
  • Have compassion and respect for youth with mental illness
  • Have patience. Lots of patience.
Crossroads Family Services and the Kinnections Program provides training and ongoing support. In addition, host homes are assigned a support worker and 24-hour agency support. Crossroads screens to ensure caregiving for kids is the right fit for the host home. Furthermore, a home study is done to ensure the provider has what it takes.
If you think you have what it takes to be a Host Home, please Apply here or attend our Information Session evening.