This message was posted by a user wishing to remain anonymous
I'm curious to how your processes and recommendations change when you need to send animals to foster that you have very little information on (i.e same day send outs after transports, disaster response, hoarding situations)?
Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 01:44 PM
From: Shonyae Johnson
Subject: Camp Maddie: Foster Edition - Foster Forward: Maximizing Placements through Collaboration
Kudos to you for trying to achieve this with your available resources. Does your entire organization have one person, or just the department looking to start the program? I recommend checking these resources out to get started as there are a few toolkits already developed:
Here's a program from Maddie's University which goes into building a foster program: Maddie's University How to Build a Foster Program
Here's information from HASS on building a pilot program: HASS - Creating a Pilot Program
I'd recommend a few things that the person could do, but all steps would need to be individualized towards your specific organization:
- Prepare yourself with DATA! Find information on shelters that do this and be ready to show your stakeholders what impact it has had
- Determine what program would benefit you best, based on your current needs. I think foster first is a great, low hanging fruit program to start if you are looking at increasing your placement of pets
- Develop a plan to outline what that would look like for your organization with departments involved, such as how many days, who would qualify and why, how would you process the adoption at the end of the foster first period, etc. and discuss how the programs would be interconnected with your current departments.
- Create a pilot program, and trial it with a population of pets. This can be a select handful of pets with longer lengths of stays, or another criteria that you find your organization is needing to highlight
- If staffing is a challenge, recruit volunteers to assist with roles that they may be able to take on. This can be creating bio's, forwarding online forms, answering general questions, etc!
I'll let others chime in as well, but I think that's a great place to start. Good luck!
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Shonyae Johnson - CPDT-KA
Program + Operations Management
Behavior Manager
Operation Kindness
Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 11:53 AM
From: Anonymous Member
Subject: Camp Maddie: Foster Edition - Foster Forward: Maximizing Placements through Collaboration
This message was posted by a user wishing to remain anonymous
Unanswered question from the chat:
"What would you recommend to a one person dept to start a program? Program such as foster first or behavior fosters."
Original Message:
Sent: 01-12-2024 11:52 AM
From: Shonyae Johnson
Subject: Camp Maddie: Foster Edition - Foster Forward: Maximizing Placements through Collaboration
Thank you to all of those who were able to join our presentation, Foster Forward: Maximizing Placements through Collaboration, during Camp Maddie: Foster Edition on December 7th. By having our behavior and foster teams collaborate, we've developed innovative ways to market, communicate, and support our dogs in our foster program until they find placement.
If you weren't able to join us, you can catch recordings for the entire event here: https://university.maddiesfund.org/products/camp-maddie-foster-edition-package and a recording of Abby and my presentation here: https://university.maddiesfund.org/products/camp-maddie-foster-edition-foster-forward-maximizing-placements-through-collaboration?packages%5B%5D=165265&in_package=165265&sort_by=package_order&ref=package&ref_id=165265
We received a ton of questions that day which we'll finish answering in the comments on this thread. Let's keep the conversation going!!
#Conferences,WorkshopsandWebcasts
#EducationandTraining
#FosterPrograms
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Shonyae Johnson - CPDT-KA
Program + Operations Management
Behavior Manager
Operation Kindness
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