The afternoon your child is home without you.
Home Alone Safety has been taught by SOS 4 Kids in classrooms since 2011. It is now a course your child can do at the kitchen table — seven badges, a certificate, and five things you fill in and stick on the fridge together.
Get the course — $139Try badge 1 free7
Safety badges
5
Things you fill in and keep
100%
Needed to pass a badge
15 yrs
Taught in classrooms
You have already had the conversation in the hallway
On the way out of the door, running late. Lock the door, don’t answer it to anyone, text me when you’re in. And then you drove to work wondering whether any of it went in.
This is that conversation, done properly, once — by people who have taught it to thousands of children in a room and know exactly which bits they get wrong.
“The part of being home alone that goes wrong most often is not the being home alone. It is the getting there.”
Badge 1 — Street Smarts
Seven badges
Each one is a short film, a lesson written in plain language, something to do, and a Badge Challenge at the end. Work through them in order, or pick the one you need this week.
Street Smarts
Getting home the same way every time — and what to do on the day it is different.
2People Safety
The six rules, your trust meter, and how to read a person you already know.
3At Home Safety
The door, the phone, the routine, the snack — and your signed House Rules.
4Online Safety
Four rules, and a conversation with a stranger watched message by message.
5Fire Safety
Prevent, detect, escape — and a family escape plan you draw and practice.
6First Aid
Emergency or mess? SCAN, bleeding, sprains, and knowing when to call 911.
7Accident Prevention
A hazard hunt round your own home, and the argument that ends in a cut.
Five things you fill in together and keep
This is the part parents tell us they actually remember. Every one of them prints on a page and is meant for the fridge.
- Your route home — the streets, the safe places along the way, and the places you do not go.
- Your family code word — the one thing that gets somebody permission to collect your child.
- Your contact card — every number, including the back-up person you have already met together.
- House Rules, our signed agreement — twelve questions answered together, signed by both of you.
- Your fire escape plan — two ways out of every room, and where you meet outside.
Children practice a fire drill at school every year. Almost no family practises one at home. This is the course that gets it done.
How it works
- Watch. A short film for each lesson. No narration, and it stops at the moment somebody has to decide something.
- Read. The lesson in plain language, with the actual words to say out loud.
- Do. Move the Trust Meter, fill in the agreement, draw the escape plan.
- Earn the badge. A Badge Challenge at the end — every answer has to be right, not most of them. Then the certificate unlocks.
The whole course is about five hours of your child’s time and does not have to be done in one go. Nothing to download, nothing to post, no live class to attend.
Choose your course
One badge
For the parent who needs one thing this week.
$39
one child · one badge · 12 months
- Any one of the seven badges
- Its own Badge Challenge and badge
- Twelve months of access, no timetable
- Credited in full against the full course within 90 days
The complete course
All seven badges, in order, at their own pace.
$139
one child · 12 months · certificate included
- All seven safety badges
- All five printable family artifacts
- Certificate issued by SOS 4 Kids on completion
- Renews at $49 a year — certificate stays current
- Works on a phone, a tablet or a laptop
Family pass
Children at different ages, which is most families.
$249
up to 3 children · 12 months
- The complete course for up to three children
- Each child earns their own badges and certificate
- One login for the household
- Twelve months from the day you start
Or come to one near you
The same seven badges, presented in person by a licensed presenter in your own community — a fire station, a soccer club, a scout hall. Your child is checked in on the day, and the certificate is issued for attending.
$69 a seat, and it includes a year of online access to the same badges, so your child can go back over any of it at home afterward.
Try badge 1 before you pay a penny
The whole of Street Smarts is open — the film, the lesson, the Trust Meter, the route builder and the Badge Challenge. No email, no sign-up, no card. If your child likes it, come back and get the other six.
They grow up through it
Home Alone Safety is the middle of three courses, and the reason it renews each year is that a child at nine does not need what a child at twelve needs.
From 6
My Safe Life
From 9
Home Alone Safety
From 11
Babysitting Ready
Each year your renewal brings the material forward with them, reissues their certificate current, and when they age out of one course they carry on into the next at the same renewal price. A child who starts at six finishes at fifteen with an unbroken run of certificates rather than one from years ago that says nothing about who they are now.
Renewals: $49 a year for one child, $99 for the household.
Questions parents ask
What age is this really for?
Nine to twelve. Choose by maturity rather than birthday — a cautious nine-year-old who is home for twenty minutes after school gets as much out of it as a confident eleven-year-old.
Will it frighten my child?
No, and it is built specifically not to. No threatening faces, no shouting adults, nothing gory. The films imply and hold at a distance and the lesson underneath does the explaining. The emotion we are after is confidence.
Do I need to sit with them?
Not for most of it. The one part that needs you is the House Rules agreement in badge 3 — that is twelve questions the two of you answer together and both sign, and it is the best thing in the course.
How long does it take?
About five hours of your child’s time across all seven badges, and it does not have to be done in one sitting. Most families do a badge or two at a time over a few weeks.
Why does it renew every year?
Because a safety course is not a thing you do once. What a nine-year-old needs is not what an eleven-year-old needs, and a certificate from three years ago tells nobody anything. Each year your child comes back, the material has moved on with them, their certificate is reissued current, and when they age out of Home Alone they carry straight on into the next course at the same renewal price.
What does the certificate say?
That your child completed the SOS 4 Kids Home Alone Safety course, which badges they earned, and the date. It is issued to the parent or guardian on record and carries an expiry, because safety knowledge is meant to be refreshed rather than filed away.
At what age is it legal to leave a child at home?
There is no single legal age in most of Canada — it is judged on the child and the circumstances, and the ages on this course are drawn from children’s aid guidance. This course is about readiness, which is the part you actually control.
Is this the Red Cross babysitting course?
No. This is Home Alone Safety, written by SOS 4 Kids, for a child looking after themselves. Babysitting is a separate course for older children who are looking after somebody else.
Get it done this week
One evening at the kitchen table, and the conversation you have been having in the hallway is finished properly.