to give students a great experience
One of the most important jobs that Bright World undertakes as guardians is to find a suitable host family for their students. Due to the fact that schools close during some weekends and half terms many guardianship students who are far from home simply cannot justify the trip home.
The most popular solution to this is to stay with a host family chosen by their guardian. Our aim at Bright World is to make this experience a good one for all parties; both host family and student. Our job begins when we are sourcing for our host families.
safer recruitment is key
We are dedicated to safeguarding the students under our care and we need to confirm this commitment from our host families as well. We follow safer recruitment processes when recruiting our host families which includes;
- taking up references for each adult in the house
- taking out a DBS check on everyone over 16 in the household
- a house inspection each year
In addition to the above, we make sure that the house is comfortable and the guardianship student can have an area of space to have time on their own to relax, listen to music and study. The host family should be genuinely interested in hosting students and be prepared to welcome them as part of their family unit.
the first meeting
One of the most difficult parts of the experience is the very first meeting. We try to prepare our students and families as best we can. We send the host family a profile on their student and we send the student a profile of their host family. These profiles include photographs of the people concerned and the house and rooms etc. This is aimed to really prepare students and host families for what lies ahead.
Each host family will collect students from school which is an important part of the role and makes the experience much easier for the child.
A Bright World member of staff will complete a questionnaire with the host family after their first stay. Any minor problems can be sorted out at this point and of course if either party really do not think the relationship is working we will work towards another solution.
hosting is a really popular thing to do
Year on year as the number of host families that we have grow and as they get more experienced, we find that our success rate improves. This latest year, 2006/7 has been our best year yet. We have more than 60 pupils staying with host families and we have had no problems at all.T his means a 100% success rate all round.
We have had very positive comments from host families, students and parents alike and would like to thank all our host families for the support they show us and we hope they realise how important they are to us.
join our network
enquire about becoming a host family
we will send you our host family handbook and a link to our application form
more about becoming a host family
answer any questions you may have