We are a solely foster based rescue and have no brick and mortar. We obviously run into issues where the need is higher than what we can accommodate for, but we make it work in most instances.
We may only have a small amount of fosters, but the wonderful thing is, we have what I call areas of foster champions! We have areas of specific need including: bottle kittens, 2nd stage kittens (3+wks to adoption age ready), juveniles, adults and one with no age preference. This helps tremendously on knowing what we're looking at for intake and who best to place them with!
We face the same issue so many others are as well in the need of more fosters!
Being in a more rural area and our rescue being one of the only equipped to handle and provide for bottle babies, we get contacted by several surrounding humane Societies with bottle babies which we never say no to intaking.
I'm a board member and my area of focus is social media relations. I do something called foster Fridays where I ask for fosters, give info and use graphics to make it pop out! We're also going to continue with our Facebook ad volunteer job search and am going to boost the post in order to reach the target audience of those who aren't followers on our Facebook page and honestly may have never heard of us. Using this feature, we've been able to recruit 2 active fosters!
I also made up a handful of "interview" questions for some of our fosters to answer to showcase that fostering felines works in a wide variety of home settings like those with other felines, dogs or children in the home. I felt like this would show the public that hey we can foster, so can you!
We do foster to adopt, especially with Kittens to give the foster the option of adopting before they're made available to the public. It must work cause I've failed at this 3 times myself! We've also had 12 other cats and kittens be adopted by their fosters!
If we're able to assist in temporary fostering for someone who wants to keep their pet, but has to do something like a 90 day treatment and we're able to accommodate them, we definitely do so which helps to keep the public engaged and shows that our rescue helps in keeping pets with their humans.
Last fall we even assisted a hometown hero who was active duty overseas who rescued a mama(Saving Sgt. Whiskers and her babies) and her 2 babies and worked with multiple agencies globally to get them stateside and begin an intense socialization process even though we tend not to take in semi to feral kitties because we just don't have the room or fosters who excel at this, but we made it work!
We also have an individual chat group for each foster which helps to keep open communication and that they feel supported the entire length of their current fosters.
Not only does the communication piece help retain fosters, giving them a BREAK in between all adopted and the next call IF they want/ need one is huge in preventing burnout!!
From personal experience as I'm an active foster as well being a bottle baby up to adoption age ready kittens champion for our rescue, I had 15 kittens come through my home within a 4 month span including 2 litters of bottle kittens at the same time! The other board members convinced me that I needed a break afterwards and although I was reluctant at first, I quickly realized just how right they were! I had begun losing that passion at fostering so we definitely make sure if our fosters are showing foster fatigue to give them that much needed break no matter how much we may need them at that time!
We be sure to thank our fosters at least once weekly because without them we honestly couldn't save as many lives as we do and we certainly don't take that lightly or for granted!
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Tracy Hanson
Ellie's Legacy Pet Rescue
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-07-2022 10:58 AM
From: Charlotte Otero
Subject: April 2022 Resource Drive: Foster Care
The theme for this month's resource drive is FOSTER CARE!
Q: What's one of the best ways to free up space in your shelter?
Q: Best way to find out what a dog or cat will be like in a home?
Q: Best way to keep anxiety and stress levels low for pets in our care?
A: FOSTER CARE! (LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!)
You can participate in 2 ways:
1. Upload/Share your favorite Foster Care Resources* (See Pro-tips for sharing resources at the bottom of this post)
2. Reply with a request for a specific Foster Care Resource YOU need
What kind of Foster Care resources can you share? What kind of Foster Care resources do you need?
The sky's the limit! Here are some ideas:
- short-term, emergency, field trip fostering program SOPs & related forms
- starting a foster care program/foster care program SOPs
- foster care coordinator/manager job descriptions
- foster caregiver manuals
- foster marketing materials: foster recruitment, social media strategies
🤑 Participation = Your Entry To Win 🤑
Everyone who uploads a file, shares a resource on this thread or replies with a successful foster technique during the month of April will be entered to win a $50 gift card to Amazon, Petco or PetSmart (winner's choice). Start sharing now!
View all of the Foster Care Resources in this Library folder
*Pro-Tips for sharing resources:
- Use the "Upload File" button when replying to this thread to attach a file. We encourage you to attach the file versus hyperlinking to the file whenever possible. Files that are attached to discussion threads are automatically added to the Maddie's Pet Forum Resource Library so attaching helps make the resource searchable and improves accessibility within the forum.
- Yes, you can share resources that your organization did not create. Sharing is caring and this applies to resources too! Make sure the creator allows the resource to be shared publicly and be sure to give credit to the creator or source organization.
#FosterPrograms
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Charlotte Otero
Community Strategist at Maddie's Fund
she/her
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