Hello! Here's some answers to your questions. I was the Foster Program Supervisor for my work before being promoted to Shelter Manager of Programs, so I've definitely delved DEEP into this area (and yet still find myself constantly learning new things, it's wonderful).
- How do you keep from always asking your same few standby fosters to take animals so that you don't risk burning them out?
- In the midst of kitten season, we sometimes have a waitlist that we go off of. So, if we know that Foster A has taken 4 of the last 10 opportunities, we'd respond by saying something along the lines of: 'we'll keep you as the back-up for now, but we'd like to try letting some of our newer fosters take this group.' It will also depend on the 'urgency' of the foster group or animal in question (i.e critical care vs easy weight gain foster).
- How do you manage foster communication and the emergency phone?
- We use email, foster facebook group, and our Trello board. Depending on how large our foster base grows though, we may consider using constant contact, which is what our development team uses for mass messages. We've run into a single-issue last year, where our foster coordinator wasn't able to send emails because an adoption update email was marked as 'spam.' Our emergency line, we use google voice, and it will typically get 'passed' to a certain person for a day or so to answer if needed. We've tried so many graphics and emails about certain emergency scenarios and have found that the inexperienced foster people like having the option to call in case their 'issue' doesn't necessarily align with the graphics description of an 'emergency.'
- How do you manage burnout for your foster team?
- Making sure they prioritize their mental health above all else, staff and volunteers alike. If we know a foster parent took bottle babies every time they came up and were asked, we'll give them a 'forced break' of at least a week so they can reset their body and get some rest. And we give them the support as needed, if they lose a foster animal, we'll have their back and send them various articles about how to deal with foster animal grief etc etc.
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Shelby Stromberger
Shelter Manager- Programs
Longmont Humane Society
303-772-1232 x 265
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-06-2024 04:11 PM
From: Nicole Hilton
Subject: Foster Program Struggles
What are the strengths and weaknesses of your foster program? Are we all experiencing the same struggles? Does anyone have ideas for how to make things better and more efficient?
As the foster coordinator, here are the struggles I see:
- How do you keep from always asking your same few standby fosters to take animals so that you don't risk burning them out?
- We have a robust list of fosters but usually only get a handful of replies to our foster pleas and end up having to reach out individually to our trusty "go-tos" for the "more difficult" cases like puppies or sick animals.
- How do you manage foster communication and the emergency phone?
- This has been asked before but I'm wondering if there are any new ideas since the last post in 2022.
- How do you manage burnout for your foster team?
- Also a repeat discussion, but maybe we've evolved and come up with new ideas for keeping our programs thriving and our team members engaged.
#FosterPrograms
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Nicole Hilton
Foster & Shelter Volunteer Coordinator
Humane Society of Truckee Tahoe
Truckee, California
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