For Professionals
The referral process, step by step
Who can refer, what actually happens at each stage, how long it really takes, what the first month looks like, and the cases where New Steps is not the right fit.
Who can refer
Anyone can reach out to us. To move in, a young person must be involved with CFS, because placements are funded and approved through their agency. After first contact, the next step is a joint call with the young person and their worker.
- The young person themselves
- Their CFS caseworker or agency
- Family members
- Other services working with the young person, such as schools, health services, or community organisations
If you are a young person or a family member rather than a professional, start at our Get Help page instead — the intake there goes straight to the same team.
Stage by stage, with real timing
About a week from first contact to move-in, when a place opens up. When there is not, the honest answer arrives in the first two business days rather than at the end of a process.
You reach out
Call, or send the referral form. If you call, we take the same information down the phone — nobody is turned away for not having filled in a web form. Next, we set up a joint call with the young person and their worker.
We answer, and we tell you about current availability
You get a real answer from a person, including the uncomfortable one. If nothing is open yet, we say so at this point rather than four weeks later, and we tell you what we know about when that might change.
The tour
You and the young person come and see the actual home — the kitchen, their own space, and the Youth Life Skills Coaches they would be working with. Ask anything. A young person who has toured a place and chosen it settles differently than one who was delivered to it.
The planning conversation
We go through fit, supports, school or work, health needs, and what the first month would look like. This is where the case plan and the module plan get lined up, and where we are honest if what the young person needs is more than we provide.
Move-in, when a place opens up
Paperwork, keys, food in the kitchen, and your place is ready. Placement depends on current availability — that is the only reason this timeline ever stretches, and we will tell you which it is.
Checking current availability
We do not publish current availability, because it would be wrong within a day and a worker would plan around it. Call (431) 444-2114 and ask. You will get the real number, including zero.
What the first month looks like
Your file does not go quiet after move-in. This is the part referring workers most often tell us they never get from a provider.
Week one — settling, not programming
The first days are about sleep, food, and knowing where everything is. Nobody is enrolled in anything on day two.
A goals conversation with a Youth Life Skills Coach
What the young person actually wants next — identification, a job, school, family contact, a driver's licence. The module plan gets built from that and from your case plan, not from a default curriculum.
Your first written update
A written update early on: how the move landed, what is working, what is not, and anything you need before your next visit.
A named contact
You get the name and number of the staff who work with the young person directly, so you are never routed through an intake desk to ask how someone is doing.
When New Steps is not the right fit
Saying no clearly is worth more to you than saying maybe for three weeks.
Somewhere to be tonight
New Steps does not do emergency or same-day placement. Every referral goes through a tour and a conversation first. For tonight, the 24/7 crisis lines are the right call.
Clinical or medical care
If what a young person needs right now is treatment, detox, or medical care, supported housing is not a substitute for it. We will say so, and we will help you think about sequencing rather than just declining.
A move the young person does not want
We will not take a referral over a young person's clear objection. It does not hold, and the failure lands on them rather than on the people who arranged it.
If a young person needs somewhere to be tonight, the 24/7 crisis lines on our Get Help page are the right call, and we would rather you used them than waited on us.
Ready to start one?
The referral form takes about five minutes, and you can send it with half the information and fill in the rest on the call.