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The child's illness plunges parents into a strange and confusing new life of medical concerns. Repeated trips to the hospital for days or weeks at a time typically means one parent quitting their job. They worry about how the child will get over the next hurdle. Brothers and sisters often feel left out as the parents struggle to support their child in the hospital while maintaining routines at home. Almost Home allows families to stay together during these times of stress. Almost Home offers a number of small areas where parents can talk with other parents who are facing the same trials and worries.

Each month, Kingston General Hospital and Hotel Dieu Hospital provide treatment for about 100 children with serious, complex, or chronic medical problems.

On average, these children must stay in hospital for 26 days per year. Many must wait months or even years before knowing the comfort and security of home.

Until "going home day" families have plenty of worries... the recovery of their child is foremost of course, but there's also the strain of bedside "shifts", finding and paying for meals in an unfamiliar city, costs for parking and gas, loss of income, exhaustion, child care for siblings, disruption of family life, divisive pressures on marriages, and serious psychological strain on siblings.

Almost Home will help ease these intense stresses.
Coordinating the support services and operating a large home, requires time and money. Approximately $280,000 per year is needed.

Almost Home is helped by volunteers who contribute hundreds of hours per week in housekeeping, management, programme planning, fundraising and board work. The families who stay at Almost Home contribute by cleaning, laundering their own linen, supporting other families and other household chores.

Almost Home does not receive provincial or federal government funds to operate.

Your help is needed to make this service possible.