The things families ask us first

It means everything that helps someone live well at home, without anything that requires a health professional's licence. Company and conversation, cooking, light housekeeping and laundry, the shopping, driving to appointments, reminders, and being there overnight.

What it does not include is any hands-on personal care or anything medical. We are a companionship and home support agency, and our support sits alongside whatever health care a family already has — it never replaces it.

No. We do not provide hands-on personal care, and we do not lift, transfer or physically move anyone between a bed, a chair or a wheelchair.

If that is what your family needs, please tell us on the first call. We will say so plainly rather than take a booking that was never going to work, and we will point you towards providers who do that work.

Yes — our shortest booking is 4 hours.

4 hours is long enough for a caregiver to arrive, settle in, cook something proper, get the household straight and actually spend time with your parent. Anything shorter turns the visit into a checklist, which is precisely the kind of care we set out not to provide.

Every caregiver is screened through the BC Criminal Record Review Program before they work with a client. That is a requirement, not a preference, and there are no exceptions to it.

Beyond the record check, our director interviews every caregiver personally and calls their references herself. She spent over eleven years teaching and training home care support workers before starting Kinship, so she is screening against experience of what actually holds up in someone's home rather than against a checklist.

We are also fully insured.

Yes. That is the whole idea, and it is the thing we protect above scheduling convenience.

Your parent is matched with one caregiver who keeps coming back — someone who learns their history, their routine and how they take their tea, rather than a different name at the door each week. For clients living with dementia this matters more than anything else we do.

When your regular caregiver is away or unwell, we tell you in advance and introduce whoever is covering. Nobody unfamiliar turns up unannounced.

Often the same day, and usually within 24 hours — particularly for someone coming home from a hospital stay, which is the call we are set up to answer fastest.

Because Kinship is locally owned, there is no corporate intake process to get through. You speak to someone who can actually make the decision, on the first call.

Both. Overnight cover means a caregiver is in the house through the night — either awake, or sleeping over and on hand if needed. It is often what makes it possible for someone to stay in their own home after a fall or a hospital stay.

Live-in care means a caregiver lives in the home and provides day-to-day companionship and household support, with their own room and agreed rest periods. Live-in arrangements take a little longer to set up, because the match matters a great deal more when someone is living under the same roof.

Yes, as companions. Our caregivers work at the pace of the person in front of them, use familiar routines, photographs and music as a way in, and keep the shape of the day recognisable.

The single most important thing we do here is send the same person every visit, so that over the weeks they become a known face rather than a stranger to be worked out again each time.

This is companionship rather than specialist care, and we work alongside whatever support a family already has in place.

We quote your rate after the free in-home consultation, once we know how many hours a week would genuinely help and what kind of support is involved. Overnight and live-in arrangements are quoted differently from ordinary visits.

You are billed for the hours that were actually scheduled, and the rate is agreed in writing before any care begins. There is no charge for the consultation and no obligation at the end of it.

Companion care of this kind is generally paid for privately. Our page on paying for care explains what publicly funded home support does and does not cover.

Ring 604-907-1585. Phones are answered around the clock, including evenings and weekends, so you do not need to wait until Monday.

The first conversation is short — we ask what has changed and what a good week would look like. If it sounds like we can help, we arrange a free consultation in the home, at a time when the family member who is most worried can be there too.

At that visit we meet your parent, look at what would actually be useful, and agree a care schedule. Then we match a caregiver, you meet them before anything begins, and if the fit is wrong you tell us and we change it.