Safe Home Study Process

The Structured Analysis Family Evaluation (SAFE) home study is a comprehensive assessment to determine your eligibility, suitability, and readiness to become a foster caregiver or adoptive parent. The SAFE home study process includes a number of interviews including a home visit and safety inspection. The interviews focus on family backgrounds, motivation for fostering or adopting, home relationships, finances, and experience with children.

This is Ontario’s standardized home study format for all foster, kinship in care, and adoptive applicants. All applicants, including all family members living in the home, are required to participate in the home study, which consists of a series of interviews between a social worker and members of the prospective foster/adoptive family, usually held in the applicant’s home.

The purpose of the home study is for the agency to get to know the prospective foster family and to provide a forum for the family to find out more about fostering. It also enables a family to take what they learn in the PRIDE training program and see how it applies to their family.

Once applicants are approved to become foster parents or kin caregivers, they continue to work with their assigned worker to develop a personalized learning plan and attend various training and skills development courses.

Foster parents and kin caregivers are important members of a child’s care team. As such, they work with a variety of professionals to help meet the needs of children and youth, including child welfare workers, school personnel, child and youth care workers, medical and mental health professionals.