Animal Welfare Professionals

Hello. I am the adoptions manager at a small rescue in the Kansas City area. We typically process adoptions without offering a trial

period. We occasionally do foster to adopt for difficult placements or a medical issue like HW positives that can be adopted once treatment complete. 
We have largely been very hesitant to offer foster to adopt but I know others do this. Would anyone be willing to share your foster to adopt program details, pros and cons and pitfalls to be aware of? Our hesitancy is two fold in that we don't want our animals bounced around and we have to be very mindful of returns because of our limited space and foster availability. But we take all of our animals back and end up with returns anyway. 

thank you in advance

#AdoptionsandAdoptionPrograms

------------------------------
Janie Schumaker
Adoptions Manager
Melissa's Second Chances
KS
------------------------------

I'd love to hear from others, but in the meantime, we heard about two Foster to Adopt programs at the August Maddie's Monthly Foster Connection meeting. You can see the recording and access copies of the organizations' program documents at http://maddies.fund/FosterConnectionAugust2024

------------------------------
Kelly Duer
Senior Shelter Solutions Specialist
Maddie's Fund
------------------------------

Hi Janie, 

It's awesome that you're exploring this idea! Here's an example of a shelter that launched this program recently and had an impressive amount of participation from their community (over 1,500 "Fur-st Date" placements in the first 6 months). In case it's helpful, here's a template for a tip sheet for this type of programming.

I also want to share some compelling research findings that showcases the many benefits of short-term fostering (even when they aren't explicitly marketed as trial adoptions): The Influence of Brief Outing and Temporary Fostering Programs on Shelter Dog Welfare (Gunter
et al., 2023)
○ This study investigated the impacts of field trips and sleepover programs and helped
launch 60 programs at shelters across the country. Researchers analyzed the data of nearly
2,000 field trip and sleepover dogs and over 25,000 control dogs.
○ Dogs who participated in field trips were 5x more likely to be adopted.
○ Dogs who participated in sleepovers were 14x more likely to be adopted.
○ Adoptions were seldom by caregivers themselves, although when this did occur, it was
more often after a sleepover (rather than a field trip).
○ Programs with more community members participating were better performing.
○ Shelters with greater resources had higher-performing programs, highlighting the
importance of human and financial resources in animal welfare.
○ Field trips were more often conducted by individuals from the community, whereas shelter
volunteers were more involved in sleepovers. This finding suggests that field trips may be a
pathway to foster caregiver recruitment!
○ For dogs that participated in a sleepover, we found that more resident dogs in their home
corresponded to a higher likelihood of the fostered dog being transferred out of the
shelter and a much lower likelihood of being euthanized.

Hopefully others will chime in with their operational experiences. Best of luck!

------------------------------
Jenifer Reed
Maddie's® Human Animal Support Services Program Implementation Trainer
AmPA!/HASS
TN
------------------------------