AFS
As a freshman in high school, our daughter befriended a very distraught young lady in her health class from Spain. As their friendship progressed, the exchange student confided in our daughter the unpleasant relationship with her host family. This young lady spoke of neglect and psychological abuse by the younger host sibling. Our daughter confided in my husband and i, we acted quickly and had the student removed from her original host family into ours. This happened within a week. We were able to complete the application process, background check and home visits due to the fact that our "students" liason and regional director were aware of her predicament.
She arrived without incident. However, I must admit we had no ideas as a host family what we had just signed up for. She arrived November 2, 2013. The dynamics of my family changed, as expected, instantly. Raising 3 teenagers is quite a task. She came to us Ill prepared to manage daily tasks The year passed quickly. We had very little support from our liaison or regional director. They did not do their in home visits as we were lead to believe were required. However, the mandatory meetings we as host's were required to make we're not negotiable even when they placed an undue burden on the family. One meeting was 3 hours away. The meeting was to start at 9;00. We left our home at 5:30 am only to discover the leaders just trickling in at 9:30. Meeting did not start til 10:30 once everyone arrived and got things set up. Needless to say, we were not happy. But this simply sums up AFS.... They do not keep there end of the deal. Once the original family couphs up the cash, AFS disappears. However the host family is left to figure it out.
Our exchange daughter returned to Spain in the spring of 2014. Happily, our family went to visit her family the following summer. We were thrilled to meet our exchange daughter's family. The visit cleared up a lot of the cultural differences. We toured all over Spain and became close to the family.
Needless to say, when the family asked if we would host their son 2016-2017, we obliged. Our exchange son arrived Aug. 2016. AFS was helpful until arrival. Then they switched to the AFS of old.... Obsolete. We were placed with a liaison who wer never saw. She contacted me 1-2 times, scheduled a visit and cancelled 30 minutes prior to arrival. I had rescheduled my work to accommodate her schedule and arrival time. We never heard another time from AFS until April 2017. A regional volunteer called after she realized we had not had a liaison visit since our students arrival In Aug. She stated that AFS was under the gun to get a liaison to our home asap because if the State Department were to review his records, AFS would be in violation and AFS could potentially lose their visa program. Suddenly, we were a priority! Next thing we know, a gentleman from our community who's daughter was an exchange student in the 1980's arrived on our door step with paperwork in hand, ready for us to sign he documents. He visited our "son" a second time prior to his return to Spain. Our student departed for home this past week early due to family obligations. AFS acknowledged his departure and informed us that their insurance would not cover his return trip. However, they have contacted us 2 times since his departure wanting to know if he would be in attendance at the final departure meeting! Lastly, they have asked for my daughters background check since she turned 18 today. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE AGREEING TO HOST OR USING AFS::
You and your family will not have any support what so ever from AFS.
Your exchange student will not have any support
AFS is run by volunteers, need I say more
This is an extremely expensive ordeal. You better be prepared to open up your wallet
Good or bad, your family dynamics will change
It's a good idea to vet your student and their family. It's a great idea to have an open dialogue with the original family.
Don't put the responsibility of the exchange students on your biological children. It will cause hard feelings.
About the time your student acclimates to the new culture,language and forms strong friendships, the program ends.
Lastly, please remember you will not have any support from AFS.
The exchange process can be very rewarding, but please know what your getting yourself into'
Penny Crain
This program exploits well-intentioned host families for providing free vacations, food and board for ungrateful foreign students used as commodities to generate large amounts of money for the AFS program, the only winners in the mix, How it is a non-profit is beyond me.
I am very very disappointed with the program. The girl my family chose is from Japan. She was recommended to us by AFS and not on the website. She communicated with us right away as well as her family and the exchange student her family was hosting from Australia. My granddaughter and i became very attached to her from the beginning and planned to visit the family next year. First of all i would not recommend getting close to the family right away until you meet the child and not make plans on meeting until you know how the stay is going.
The first warning sign was my exchange students exchange student contacted us the day my student left for California from Japan. Her exchange student told us how "entitled and spoiled" our student was, how the students family mistreated her, how the student was when it came to boys ect. I told my granddaughter, who is the same age as our student, to ignore the comments and lets get to know our student for who she is.
Boy did we.
At first things went rather well. We grew to love her like another family member. She participated in family events, and it was actually a joy to have her around. She became very close to my granddaughter as they were both seniors in the same school. We made plans to travel with her, ect.
Two months into it the student started becoming lazy and did not want to clean. I had to comprise a schedule so she and my granddaughter would take turns doing normal chores like cleaning their room and bathroom, taking out trash, dishes ect. I noticed this girl was eating in her bedroom. I asked her several times to stop. My granddaughter became depressed because the girl was starting drama with her male friends and began to feel like she was the girls caretaker. I started to see what the other exchange student warned me of. Also, she ate like a linebacker. I understand we are supposed to feed them but can we have a limit? I am not joking when i say she eats her weight in food per week if not more. When i called the liaison to vent their solution was to take her from us. This upset us. We still cared very much for her and did not want her to leave. I just didn't expect to spend so much money out of pocket to feed the child. Eventually we had a sit down with AFS and they agreed to let her stay and assess the situation in a month.
Well things didn't last that long. After realizing dishes were missing and i was getting more and more ants in the house i inspected the students room and realized she was a food hoarder. I found food, dishes, empty food jars hidden in the closet, under the bed, in drawers and a half container of salad dressing in her laundry basket and boxes of trash hidden under the bed. At the time she was with one of the volunteers at her house visiting with their exchange student and siblings. I called and explained the situation and was told they were placing her someplace else. That's when the nightmare began. The student was placed with another family and this student proceeded to bash me to other students, friends of my granddaughter and whoever would listen. She lied about me not feeding her, said i made her get up at 11 pm to clean and it goes on. She is known to spread lies and even her mother commented on the weight gain, something that wouldn't have happened had i not fed her like she said.
I do not feel supported by the staff at AFS and feel like they took her side immediately. I opened up my heart and home to this "prima donna" who clearly did not clean at home (as her exchange student stated) was boy crazy and had mental health issues. I do not think AFS screens thoroughly enough. Also feeding a child and housing them for 10 months is excessive now that i think about it when its for free. This child complained that i made her pay for her own food when we went out to eat. Yes, that happened twice. But given the fact that she was eating me out of house and home, would eat everyone else food at dinner when we went out if they didn't want it, would order more than the average person could eat and her family would go out to dinner constantly and always make her exchange student pay, well she has nerve to say the least.
At this point i am using this forum to vent. I'm sure there are others who have had positive experiences. After hosting i talked to several friends who hosted at one point or another in their life and stated they would never do it again and neither will I. I feel used and taken advantage of and to top it off this ungrateful student is going around spreading lies about me to boot. It is not worth the aggravation.
