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The Darling Home for Kids provides high quality respite, residential and hospice care to children with medical complexities and their families. In addition to offering our three core programs, the Home also offers a combination of complementary therapeutic programs including music therapy, recreation therapy, pet therapy, hydrotherapy, and multi-sensory snoezelen therapy, all designed to promote well-being and offer unique experiences to the children in our care. We believe in providing care for the family as a whole, and have created effective and engaging programs for both the siblings and parents of children with complex medical needs.

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.

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 four 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.

We believe in open and transparent reporting. Our Annual Reports and Audited Financial Statements provide an overview of our performance each year.

We hold ourselves to a high standard of fiscal responsibility, honouring the commitments made to our supporters, our staff, and those we serve.

You can find our Annual Reports and Audited Financial Statements HERE.

The best way to stay up to date is to subscribe to our newsletter and updates HERE.

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Yes! To learn more visit our Volunteer Page HERE.

The Darling Home for Kids offers a variety of volunteer positions. We encourage you to share your personal skills and passions to ensure your opportunity is a good fit for both the Home and for you.

You can learn more about available opportunities HERE.

Access our volunteer policies HERE.

Volunteer training sessions are held bi-monthly. To receive a list of upcoming dates for volunteer information sessions, contact volunteer@darlinghomeforkids.ca