Iris House provides free community-based respite care in 62 communities throughout the Western Cape. Our fully trained carers are dispatched to your home to care for your child for up to six hours. Allowing our parents time to relax, shop, and enjoy some much-needed downtime. We understand that caring for your special needs child is a 24/7 commitment and that having a break from a very demanding schedule is essential for our parents.

Our hospice offers free respite daycare sessions three times per week. Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We also offer once-a-month Saturday half-day sessions. The hospice is managed by a registered nurse. Each child has their own carer and follows an individual care plan with a maximum of 6 children per session. We have two fully equipped playrooms, a sensory room, a sensory garden, a petting area, and two gorgeous therapy horses.

Iris House provides free in-house training to parent carers and professional carers at our hospice learning center. We also offer medical training to parents facilitated by our hospice nurse and support team. Medical training is provided at our hospice and in the community. Carer training is free and a two-day course. Parent training happens at our quarterly parent support groups and also in the community.

In 2020 Iris House Children’s Hospice was registered as a Child Protection Organisation by the Western Cape department of social development.  Our mandate is to facilitate the training of new and existing safety and foster parents to enable them to be able to care for special needs children who are at risk. We also offer ongoing training and in-home support for safety and foster parents of special needs children. All of the above services are free.