FAQ

The Darling Home for Kids is a twelve-bed facility with six respite care beds, two hospice palliative care suites and four residential beds. The home offers respite and hospice palliative care to children ages infancy to 18 years, who are medically fragile and technology dependent. Currently, our respite program is offered on weekends and some weekdays, as well as during peak times (holidays, summer break, and March break) to meet family requests for service.

In addition to our core services, the Home offers children a number of additional therapeutic programs including pet therapy, recreation therapy, art therapy, music therapy and hydrotherapy.

The Darling Home for Kids provides paediatric hospice care and respite services to families across Ontario who have children with life-limiting or life-threatening illnesses requiring complex and/or technology-dependent care

Over fifteen years ago, the Cherry family became involved with The Cedarbrook Society in an effort to help build this wonderful hospice and respite facility. With the completion of the Home, the Cherry Family felt pleased that their personal goals had been met, and saw an opportunity for the Home to be renamed so the organization could move forward with the next phase of growth.

The Cedarbrook Society is a nonprofit children’s charitable organization with a founding mission to optimize the care and quality of the lives of children with complex medical care needs through the development of home-like community hospice programs. The Cedarbrook Society established and operates The Darling Home for Kids and will use the Home as a model to develop similar facilities across Canada.

Unlike Ronald McDonald House, which provides a temporary home for families who have children receiving medical care and treatments in a hospital, The Darling Home for Kids provides a home-like environment in which children can receive medical care.

The Home is located 10 minutes from the intersection of Highway 401 and Highway 25 on 15th Side Road on the Niagara Escarpment. Surrounded by 77 acres of woodlands, the Home offers a tranquil environment for our children and families. Despite its rural setting, the Home is close to downtown Milton, and less than 7 minutes from Milton District Hospital.

Construction of the Home began in early November 2003. Thanks to the outstanding support of numerous donors, volunteers and the Ontario construction community, the Home was completed and celebrated its Grand Opening on September 23, 2004. In 2009, we completed a second building phase that more than doubled the size of our Home and increased our capacity to help children and families.

The vision to build a children’s hospice respite centre came to be as a result of the recognized need to establish a special place of refuge for chronically ill children who are medically fragile and/or technology dependent, many of whom suffer from progressive, life-limiting illness.

Prior to the opening of The Darling Home for Kids, there were no facilities in Ontario that combined both respite and hospice palliative care for children in a home-like environment.

The Darling Home for Kids is eligible to receive government funding annually for our core programs. The Ministry of Children and Youth Services provides financial support for the respite program, and the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care for the palliative program. However, the funding allocated only covers a percentage of the Home’s operational costs. As such, we hold two annual Signature Events, have several third party fundraisers, and rely on the generosity of our donors to keep the doors of The Darling Home for Kids open.

The Home has a 12 bed overnight capacity with 6 respite beds, 2 hospice palliative care beds and 4 residential beds. In an average year we service approximately 65 children through our programs and services.

The children The Darling Home for Kids services are between the ages of infancy and 18 years. In the respite program, children can stay at the Home for up to a week during peak times. A typical weekend respite stay is 48 hours.