How Puffin Vets Every Caregiver

Vetting claims are easy to make and hard to compare, because most are written to sound thorough rather than to be checked. This one is written to be checked. Where we do less than you might expect, it says so.

The process

1. Application and role screening. Caregivers apply to a specific role. What is required differs by role — infant care, senior personal care and behaviour intervention are not interchangeable, and neither are their qualifications.

2. Police vulnerable sector check. Every caregiver has a clear one before their first shift — requested for Puffin at their local police or RCMP detachment, or one they already hold from a previous role working with children. It is the check designed for work with children and vulnerable adults, not a general criminal record check, and a family is never billed for it. What sets its cost and wait is in what a background check costs.

3. Reference verification. Actually contacted, not collected. A reference list nobody calls is decoration.

4. Certification checks appropriate to the role. First aid, infant-specific training where the role involves infants, and the professional registration that applies to a given role. For pediatric specialists, whose service is in development, this will include supervision by a therapist registered on the Registry of Autism Service Providers — with the qualifying route differing by role: a Board Certified Behaviour Analyst for behaviour intervention, and College of Health and Care Professionals of BC registration for speech-language pathology and occupational therapy.

5. Employment, not contracting. Hourly caregivers are hired as Puffin employees. Puffin runs payroll, carries the insurance, and is the employer of record — so you are not employing someone in your home. This is a structural choice, and it is the one most difficult for a listing-based model to match.

6. Matching, then briefing. Caregivers are matched to a booking rather than picking up whatever is open, and arrive briefed on the specifics you have given us — allergies, routines, medical needs, house rules.

What we deliberately do not do

No photo ID verification in the nanny placement flow. A considered decision, not an oversight.

We do not assess or diagnose. Pediatric specialists will work to a plan written by a registered clinician. Nobody at Puffin decides what a child needs.

We do not claim to predict behaviour. No screening process does. A vulnerable sector check tells you about a record; it does not tell you who someone will be on a difficult Tuesday. Anyone implying otherwise is overselling.

We do not carry the employment relationship into placements. In Nanny Placement, the nanny becomes your family's employee once placed. Puffin does the search and the vetting and then steps out. See employed vs. contractor.

Family-side verification

First-time in-home bookings include photo ID verification for the household, reviewed by an administrator before a caregiver is dispatched.

That is not a formality. Caregivers are going alone into strangers' homes, and a vetting process that runs in only one direction is protecting only one party.

How to compare this

Ask any provider:

The answers are more informative than any adjective.