To Our Hosting Volunteers:

It is that time of year when we begin to receive many requests to have participants leave early (Personal Early Return) or stay longer (Program Release). Therefore, we have updated the articles (Personal Early Return and Program Release) in Help and Learning to reflect some changes and the PR request deadline.

In summary, here are the key facts:

• All program release requests must be initiated by our partners. Students must contact their sending families with all relevant information needed to begin this process (ie date off program, return flight date, reason, host family agrees, sending family visit date, etc.)
• The deadline to request a program release is 2 MAY 2022.
• Sending family visits: As AFS USA is not allowing sending family visits during the program year, our partners have been told that a student will be required to program release on the date their sending family plans to visit. We are advising partners that sending families plan their visit on the last day of the program. If they insist on arriving earlier, this date will be considered the student’s program release date, and the student must leave with their family. As with all program releases, students forfeit all program services and may not attend any local AFS events as of this date.

As a reminder, the planned program date can be found on the service case/placement info tab within the “late traveler date range” field (see below). You can also read this article.

If you have questions specific to the process to request a program release/personal early return, please email us at afshosttravel@afsusa.org.

Thank you.

AFS USA’s Travel and Logistics Coordination Team