Help Now Healthcare provides home care for children and young people across Ontario — nursing, personal support and respite, delivered in the family home and, where it is arranged, at school or in the community.
We are a healthcare staffing and home care company serving all ages and all settings. Most of what is written about home care assumes an older adult, so this page sets out what is different when the person receiving care is a child.
Call toll-free 1-888-507-6236, or book a free consultation.
How care for a child is different
Four things that change the job
A child is not a small adult, and a family home is not a ward.
Parents of a medically complex child usually know more about that child’s condition than any worker arriving at the door. Our staff are briefed to take direction from the family and to say when something is outside what they can do.
Children have places to be. Care that only works between four walls does not work for a child, so support at school, at a program or on an outing is part of what is arranged.
The point is a childhood — school, siblings, friends, independence appropriate to age. Care that removes all of that has solved the wrong problem.
Overnight and weekend cover is frequently the single most valuable thing we provide, because a family that cannot sleep cannot keep going for years, and this is often a job measured in years.
Who we support
| Situation | What support usually looks like |
|---|---|
| Medically complex and technology-dependent children | Nursing for tube feeding, tracheostomy and ventilator care, oxygen, seizure management and medication administration — often overnight so that parents can sleep |
| Children with developmental or physical disabilities | Personal care, mobility and transfers, feeding, supervision, and support to take part in school, programs and family life |
| Children recovering from surgery, injury or serious illness | Wound care, medication, mobility support and help getting back to school |
| Children with life-limiting conditions | Comfort-focused care at home alongside the paediatric palliative team, including overnight and continuous presence |
| Families needing respite | Planned regular blocks, or occasional cover, so that parents can work, sleep, attend to siblings or simply stop for a day |
Screening, when the client is a child
What is confirmed before anyone comes to your home
A police record check including vulnerable sector screening, appropriate to work with children, completed and current before assignment.
Registration verified with the College where the role requires it, and competency for the specific clinical tasks confirmed rather than assumed.
Children do not do well with a rotating cast. We block-book and keep a small named team around a child wherever the schedule allows it.
Ask about publicly funded support first
Ontario Health atHome coordinates publicly funded home care for children, including nursing and personal support, and also coordinates health support services delivered in schools. Families of children with disabilities may additionally be eligible for provincial programs that fund respite and other supports directly.
Ask what you are entitled to before you pay for anything. Private care is worth buying for the hours that are not covered, for nights and weekends, and where continuity of the same worker matters — not as a substitute for funded support you can access.
Where we provide it
Across our Ontario service areas — the GTA, Halton and Hamilton, Niagara, Waterloo Region and Wellington, southwestern Ontario, Simcoe, Grey and Bruce, central and eastern Ontario, and the north. See the full list of communities we cover.
Tell us about your child
The clinical needs, the hours that are hardest, and what you have already got in place. We will tell you what we can match and when — and we will tell you plainly if we cannot.
Related: Home care services in Ontario · Palliative and end-of-life care at home