what is the best way to find a good host family?

Finding the right host family isn't always high on the long list of priorities parents have when they are preparing to send their child to a UK boarding school. With the first exeat weekend of the school year beginning soon after the start of the academic year, followed swifly by the October half term break, finding a host family may just have jumped right up to the top of the list.

In fact, parents can be forgiven for assuming that their child will be able to stay in school for the duration of their studies. These fairly frequent gaps in the school year are, however, typically a time when British students spend the holidays at home with their family.

Boarding houses usually close to give staff some much needed rest. This means that international students need the additional services of a guardian.

For international students, travel home may not be the best choice practically or financially for these shorter holiday times. Now is as good a time as any to find a host family or residential alternative.

Host family selection is a job to be undertaken by an impartial, AEGIS-accredited guardianship organisation like Bright World.

Parents should be aware that there is currently no legislation around guardianship to protect international children during school breaks. For this reason parents should be wary of cheap, host family-only offers.

However, with a growing awareness of this grey area in child protection and safeguarding, your school or education agency will usually advise you to take up the services of an accredited company.

What are your requirements for a host family? Does your child have any allergies or medical needs? Would they prefer a more active family or are they happy to have time to study?

These are just some of the questions a good guardian will ask you when they are planning your child's half term and exeat stay. Asking these questions will help to ensure the best possible experience during their holiday and time away from school.

The answers can help your guardian build a much clearer picture of your child's preferences. This, in turn, will help them to match your child with the most suitable host family option. If you choose Bright World, you will be presented with a full colour profile of your host family. You will also be encouraged to meet with the hosts, if you are travelling to the UK, so that you can get to know them, see their home and ask any questions you have about the up and coming stay.

An AEGIS-accredited guardian, like Bright World, should be going through all the checks for you and will even make sure the smoke alarm in the house is in full working order.

Safer recruitment processes must be followed to the wire and here are just some of the steps we take when screening and sourcing our host families:

• All advertisements purposefully attempt to attract the right type of people with the correct motives for hosting a student.
• A full telephone consultation will help our host family recruitment team to decide on whether a family can proceed to the home inspection stage.
• A house inspection follows and it is extremely thorough. Not only will we inspect the house for cleanliness and facilities but we also look at fire, health and safety matters, and verify car and house insurance documents.
• Personal and professional references will be sought for each adult in the family, to help to gain a full picture of the hosts. If we are unhappy with these then the application will not proceed past this point.
• The final part of the process is to conduct an enhanced DBS (criminal record) check on all members of the family who are over 16 years of age. Their details are run through the national police database. The check will alert us to any criminal record they may have. More importantly, it will let us know if there are any restrictions on the person coming into contact with children.

When it comes to finding the perfect host family, some parents want to be more involved in the process. Our unique selection tool not only allows you to view profiles of families by their distance from school, but also asks you to select your top three choices.

If you want to find a host family and would like access to our selection tool, or would like to enquire about guardianship for your child then please complete our short enquiry form.

At Bright World, we can provide you with a first class guardianship service. To find out more about the best guardianship in the UK please contact us today.