Home Study for Foster Care in Saskatchewan: What to Expect
The home study is the part of the foster care application that makes most people the most anxious. A Ministry worker will come to your house, look around, and spend hours asking your family questions. The worry is usually: what exactly are they looking for? What will disqualify us?
The honest answer is that the home study is not a gotcha exercise. It's a mutual assessment — the worker is trying to understand whether your family is ready, what kind of placements would suit you, and where you might need extra support. Most families who reach the home study stage pass it.
What the Home Study Actually Is
Saskatchewan's family assessment process (home study) involves multiple visits to your home by a Ministry of Social Services social worker, or a worker from a First Nations delegated agency if you're applying through that stream. The resulting Home Study Report is a detailed document that forms the basis for your foster home licence application.
The assessment covers two things: the physical home environment and the people in it.
The Physical Inspection: What Gets Checked
Saskatchewan's Ministry applies specific standards drawn from the Child and Family Services Regulations. Workers check:
Bedroom requirements
- Minimum 70 square feet of floor space for a single child
- Minimum 60 square feet per child in shared rooms
- Minimum ceiling height of 7.5 feet
- Each child gets an individual bed with separate mattress, pillow, and linens
- Every bedroom must have an operable window (fire exit)
- Children of different genders cannot share a room past age 5
Fire and safety
- Working smoke detector on every floor and near sleeping areas
- Carbon monoxide detector in any room with a fuel-burning appliance
- Fire extinguisher (minimum 2.5 lbs) on every floor
- Hot water temperature at taps must not exceed 49°C (120°F)
Locked storage
- All medications (prescription and over-the-counter) must be in locked storage
- Household chemicals, cleaning products, and alcohol locked away
- Tobacco products inaccessible to children
Firearm storage (particularly relevant for rural Saskatchewan families)
- All firearms stored unloaded in a locked, non-glass-front cabinet
- Ammunition stored separately in a different locked location
- This applies to hunting rifles, shotguns, and handguns
Rural properties
- Private well water must be tested and certified safe annually before licensing
- Distance from emergency services is factored into the overall assessment
- Winter accessibility of the home is considered for children with high medical needs
The Family Assessment: What the Worker Is Looking For
This is what most people underestimate. The physical inspection takes maybe 30 minutes. The family assessment takes much longer — multiple visits, individual conversations with adults and any children in the home, and a structured series of interviews exploring your history, motivations, and parenting approach.
Topics typically covered:
- Your own upbringing and relationship with your parents
- How you and your partner communicate and resolve conflict
- Your experience with children — biological, nieces, nephews, community
- Your motivation for fostering — the worker is probing for realistic versus romanticised expectations
- How your biological children (if any) feel about having foster siblings
- Your "range of acceptance": what ages, numbers, and needs you're willing to support
- How you'll manage a child returning to their birth family (attachment and loss)
- Your understanding of trauma, attachment, and why children enter care
- Cultural awareness — given that over 80% of Saskatchewan children in care are Indigenous, workers assess whether you can support cultural connections
The worker is not looking for perfect parents. They're looking for honest, self-aware families with the capacity to provide stability.
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How Long Does the Home Study Take?
In Saskatchewan, the full process — from initial inquiry through home study completion to licence approval — typically takes 6 to 12 months. The home study component itself, once it begins, usually takes 2 to 4 months. Factors that affect timing:
- Urban vs. rural: Saskatoon and Regina have more workers and more frequent visit windows. Rural and northern applicants often wait longer for initial appointments and may have home study workers managing much larger territories.
- Documentation delays: Background checks and medical clearances need to be in hand before the home study can conclude. Starting these early matters.
- Family complexity: Larger households with more adults to interview, or families with past Ministry involvement that requires additional exploration, take longer.
- Worker caseloads: Saskatchewan has experienced social worker shortages. An overloaded caseload is a real factor in some regions.
Preparing Your Home Practically
A walk-through of your home before the worker arrives helps catch anything that needs attention:
- Test every smoke alarm and check that CO detectors are present where required
- Confirm your medication cabinet locks and that it's actually used (not just present)
- Check bedroom floor space — measure if you're unsure
- Ensure firearms are properly stored if applicable
- If you're on a well, have the water test certificate ready
- Make sure the home feels lived-in and warm, not staged — workers notice the difference
The Saskatchewan Foster Care Guide includes a complete room-by-room inspection checklist based on MSS and SFFA standards, which is useful to run through a week or two before the worker visits.
Preparing Your Family for the Conversations
The interviews are not interrogations. Helpful ways to approach them:
- Answer honestly, including about difficult parts of your past — the worker already knows the criminal and registry checks will surface anything significant, and evasion is more concerning than a disclosed history
- Talk openly with your children beforehand so they're not blindsided when a stranger asks them questions about their home life
- Discuss as a couple (or household) what your actual range of acceptance is — not the aspirational version, but the one you can genuinely sustain
The goal is a Home Study Report that accurately represents your family so that placements will be a good match. A report that overstates your capacity leads to a poor placement; a report that understates it means missing children you could have helped.
What Happens After
Once the home study is complete and PRIDE training is finished, a supervisor reviews your file. If approved, you receive your Foster Home Licence. The licence is renewed annually, and you'll complete a fresh home safety check and updated background declarations each year.
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