If you are having trouble with your hosted child and need assistance, we are here to support you. Decades of experience has taught us that our international translators are often the most effective means of mitigating challenges with hosted children. Therefore, if you are presented with a challenge that requires intervention we ask that host parents engage a Frontier Horizon translator as a first point of contact. Contact information for these helpful partners will be provided to all hosting families. In addition to being an amazing, potentially life changing experience, international hosting can also be a very stressful experience for the children hosted. Helping kids navigate these points of stress is a high priority for Frontier Horizon. Often a brief connection with a mentor that is familiar to the child, one who knows their history, and speaks their language resolves any challenges that may arise. We strongly encourage all host families to contact a translator to help with conflicts or communication difficulties. Understanding between the hosted child and host family is key to the creating a positive hosting experience. We ask all host families to be sensitive to the many adjustments hosted children must make with regard to time zones, language, and cultural differences upon arriving to the United States or Canada. Please be patient as it may take some time to make the needed adjustments.
Mitigating extreme difficulty: If you are having persistent and/or extreme challenges with your hosted child such that removing the child from your home becomes necessary we ask that you follow the Frontier Horizon Conflict Resolution Plan. Said plan is noted below.
Note: We ask all host families to give their hosted children a minimum of three or four days to adjust to the new time difference, their new surroundings, and their Host Family before contacting Frontier Horizon regarding the significant action of moving a child.
Note: If your child must be removed from your home and placed in another home in a different city, the original Host Family is responsible for the cost of airfare for their hosted child and guardian/translator to relocate.
72 Hour Conflict Resolution Plan:
- STEP 1: Please contact Frontier Horizon staff immediately to explain your situation and to express your concerns.
- STEP 2: Frontier Horizon staff will immediately contact a translator to intervene in the situation. The translator should intervene within 24 hours of the initial complaint. Frontier Horizon prefers intervention to be done in person, but if a translator cannot get to your home, the intervention can be done via phone or video conference. Please provide at least a 24 hour grace period after the intervention call for change to take place in the dynamics with the hosted child[ren].
- STEP 3: If unmanageable challenges persist and the host family desires for child[ren] to be placed in another home 48 hours after the intervention, the family must immediately call Frontier Horizon staff, and relocation plans will be initiated. We will do our best to make arrangements within the next 24 hours. All host families must understand that they will NOT receive reimbursement for the program after the hosted child is removed. Understand that the entire relocation process takes a minimum of 3 to 4 days.