01
Your own goals
Whatever you are working toward — returning to your profession, starting a business, bringing family — your plan is built around it.
ABOUT NAARS
Your Settlement Plan in Canada,
built around your needs and assets
One conversation, in your language, checked by your Settlement Counsellor
NAARS is how the Association of Neighbourhood Houses gets to know you — your needs, your goals, and the strengths and skills you bring with you. You answer questions about housing, language, work, health, family and daily life — whatever you need help with right now.
You can do it by Voice AI in your own language, in person, or in a virtual meeting — and switch at any point. Your answers become a written settlement plan. A Settlement Counsellor at your neighbourhood house reviews it and goes through your plan with you before anything is final.
Start now↗WHAT THE ASSESSMENT COVERS
Seven parts of
settling in, one plan
- 01 Your own goals
- 02 Basic Needs
- 03 Language & Literacy
- 04 Employment, Education & Training
- 05 Family & Children
- 06 Government, Finances & Legal
- 07 Social Supports & Community
- 08 Your Assets & Strengths
We start with your settlement goals and your top priorities — you determine what matters to you.
02
Basic Needs
Food, clothing, and a place to live you can afford — plus urgent medical needs, mental wellbeing, feeling safe at home, getting online, using local transit, and help with forms and appointments. If your housing is at risk, we help today.
03
Language & Literacy
How comfortable you are in English and French — and reading and writing in your own language. Free classes plus informal ways to practise, like conversation circles and peer groups, with services available in French.
04
Employment, Education & Training
Finding work, writing a résumé, and getting the qualifications you earned back home recognised here. Your goals for a job, further education, or starting a business — and what you can do meanwhile: bridging programs, volunteering, or work in a related field.
05
Family & Children
Getting children into school and childcare, and support once they’re there — after-school programs, special-needs support, help with bullying — plus youth activities and your family’s safety and wellbeing at home and at school.
06
Government, Finances & Legal
The documents and benefits that unlock life here — SIN, health card, driver’s licence, PR card, child and other benefits, affordable-housing applications — plus banking and financial literacy, trustworthy legal help, and the path to citizenship.
07
Social Supports & Community
Community and cultural groups near you — including groups for seniors, women, youth and others — mentors who arrived before you, faith and cultural communities, and support if you ever face discrimination or racism. Settling in is more than paperwork.
08
Your Assets & Strengths
The skills, credentials, languages and experience you bring with you — from trades, tech and business to leadership, creative skills, even a driver’s licence. NAARS starts from what you have — the plan builds on your strengths, not just your needs.
NAARS uses IRCC’s National Standardized Assessment Template ↗ — the same assessment, whichever door you come through.
From hello to a plan
you can hold
01
Choose your language
Pick the language you are most comfortable in — questions, booking and your plan will all be in it. No English needed.
02
Have the conversation
By Voice AI, in person, or virtually — your choice, and you can switch or ask for a person at any time. Prefer to share nothing yet? Just book an appointment with your name and one way to reach you.
03
Review your plan together
Your Settlement Counsellor goes through your draft plan with you and corrects anything. Only when you both agree it is right does it become final.
04
Your referrals
You are connected to the services in your plan.
05
Keep it alive
Your plan lives in your portal in your language. Check things off, request changes, and update it at your check-in as life changes.
06
Share it — your choice
With your consent, share your NAARS assessment and settlement plan with the other agencies helping you — tell your story once, not at every door.
OPEN TO EVERYONE
Settlement Resources
Whatever your immigration status, and whether or not you ever talk to us, these are free and always here.
Settlement basics
SIN, MSP, banking, school registration, and the first things to sort out after you land.
Open resources ↗Learning English & French
Free classes near you, and the official online level test (CLB-OSA) before you start.
Find a class ↗Work in Canada
Job Bank, WorkBC, and how to get qualifications from your country recognised here.
Career resources ↗Services near you
Organisations across Metro Vancouver that help newcomers, with what each one does.
Services ↗Francophone Resources
Settlement services in French across BC — Francophone community organisations, French schools and classes, and activities near you.
Services en français ↗Not in Canada yet?
Pre-arrival resources — documents to bring, first-week checklist, housing from abroad. You can even start your NAARS assessment before you land.
Pre-arrival resources ↗TRANSPARENCY
How the AI works
An AI helper writes down what you say.
During a voice assessment, AI listens and turns your answers into a written draft — in your language, at your pace. It only drafts; it never decides.
A person always reviews it.
A Settlement Counsellor at your neighbourhood house reads every word, checks it with you, and corrects anything before it counts. Nothing is final, and nothing is shared, until you both agree it is right.
Your identity stays out of the AI.
The AI never sees your identity documents or personal identifiers — those stay with your neighbourhood house only.
You can ask for a person at any time.
Switch to in-person or virtual mid-conversation, or ask for your draft to be reviewed sooner — your choice, always.
Ready when you are
It takes about an hour, and you can stop whenever you like — your answers are saved whenever you stop, for 30 days. Nothing you say goes anywhere until you and your Settlement Counsellor agree it is right.