Animal Welfare Professionals

I would love to hear about foster approval processes for other departments, and guidelines for choosing the right foster animal for each foster family. I would imagine it would be a similar process as with the adoption process. The main difference of course is that the animal still belongs to us and we need to be able to trust the foster to follow the rules. Does anyone have red flag insights to share or some good questions to help guide us when choosing the right animal with the right foster family? If you have policies guiding staff through the process that would be very helpful. I believe it's most common to have managers approve foster applicants, but we have a bit of a challenge with that. I am the only manager for this department, we operate two shelters with one shelter attendant per shelter (3 total attendants, one main attendant per shelter and a floater between the two covering their weekends).  I could approve the applications, but the decision making with matching animals to the fosters would be up to the staff, since they spend more time with the animals and know their behavior. We are looking for some good guidelines to assist our staff. I wonder if we should do the system where I assign a certain level of clearance based on the foster's experience (we need to develop a good questionnaire to help guide that decision), and staff can assign the animal a level of clearance for this program, such as fosters with a color coded sticker, based on their experience, will have clearance to foster animals that have the same color coded sticker based on their behavior evaluations.  I would love to hear what's working for everyone else out there. 
Thank you!

#FosterPrograms

------------------------------
Malinda Huggans
Director of Animal Services
Mono County, CA
760-932-5635
mhuggans@mono.ca.gov
------------------------------

Hi There,

Our fosters go through orientation and foster training. After that we take a look at their foster application (we have an app for fosters as well as general vols) and then we add our fosters on to a foster list. I've attached our foster application so you can see how we match our pets to people for fostering. Very similar to our adoption process. We're a small shelter and have a lot of pets in foster on a very consistent basis. Hope that helps!

------------------------------
Erin Ellis
Community Engagement Director
Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe

---------
Foster Program & Volunteer Management Specialist
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-23-2022 11:00 AM
From: Malinda Huggans
Subject: Fostering Decision Making

I would love to hear about foster approval processes for other departments, and guidelines for choosing the right foster animal for each foster family. I would imagine it would be a similar process as with the adoption process. The main difference of course is that the animal still belongs to us and we need to be able to trust the foster to follow the rules. Does anyone have red flag insights to share or some good questions to help guide us when choosing the right animal with the right foster family? If you have policies guiding staff through the process that would be very helpful. I believe it's most common to have managers approve foster applicants, but we have a bit of a challenge with that. I am the only manager for this department, we operate two shelters with one shelter attendant per shelter (3 total attendants, one main attendant per shelter and a floater between the two covering their weekends).  I could approve the applications, but the decision making with matching animals to the fosters would be up to the staff, since they spend more time with the animals and know their behavior. We are looking for some good guidelines to assist our staff. I wonder if we should do the system where I assign a certain level of clearance based on the foster's experience (we need to develop a good questionnaire to help guide that decision), and staff can assign the animal a level of clearance for this program, such as fosters with a color coded sticker, based on their experience, will have clearance to foster animals that have the same color coded sticker based on their behavior evaluations.  I would love to hear what's working for everyone else out there. 
Thank you!

#FosterPrograms

------------------------------
Malinda Huggans
Director of Animal Services
Mono County, CA
760-932-5635
mhuggans@mono.ca.gov
------------------------------

Thank you Erin, 
What does your foster orientation look like?

------------------------------
Malinda Huggans
Mono County Animal Services
7609325635
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-23-2022 11:35 AM
From: ERIN ELLIS
Subject: Fostering Decision Making

Hi There,

Our fosters go through orientation and foster training. After that we take a look at their foster application (we have an app for fosters as well as general vols) and then we add our fosters on to a foster list. I've attached our foster application so you can see how we match our pets to people for fostering. Very similar to our adoption process. We're a small shelter and have a lot of pets in foster on a very consistent basis. Hope that helps!

------------------------------
Erin Ellis
Community Engagement Director
Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe

---------
Foster Program & Volunteer Management Specialist

Original Message:
Sent: 08-23-2022 11:00 AM
From: Malinda Huggans
Subject: Fostering Decision Making

I would love to hear about foster approval processes for other departments, and guidelines for choosing the right foster animal for each foster family. I would imagine it would be a similar process as with the adoption process. The main difference of course is that the animal still belongs to us and we need to be able to trust the foster to follow the rules. Does anyone have red flag insights to share or some good questions to help guide us when choosing the right animal with the right foster family? If you have policies guiding staff through the process that would be very helpful. I believe it's most common to have managers approve foster applicants, but we have a bit of a challenge with that. I am the only manager for this department, we operate two shelters with one shelter attendant per shelter (3 total attendants, one main attendant per shelter and a floater between the two covering their weekends).  I could approve the applications, but the decision making with matching animals to the fosters would be up to the staff, since they spend more time with the animals and know their behavior. We are looking for some good guidelines to assist our staff. I wonder if we should do the system where I assign a certain level of clearance based on the foster's experience (we need to develop a good questionnaire to help guide that decision), and staff can assign the animal a level of clearance for this program, such as fosters with a color coded sticker, based on their experience, will have clearance to foster animals that have the same color coded sticker based on their behavior evaluations.  I would love to hear what's working for everyone else out there. 
Thank you!

#FosterPrograms

------------------------------
Malinda Huggans
Director of Animal Services
Mono County, CA
760-932-5635
mhuggans@mono.ca.gov
------------------------------

Our foster training is a pre-recorded training with a quiz at the end to ensure that training was watched and there was some retention. Training consists of rules and guidelines specific to our program, do's and don'ts of fostering, illness (sometimes we lose fosters due to the risk, which is totally fine), our emergency and after-hours protocols, and what to expect with foster pets.

------------------------------
Erin Ellis
Community Engagement Director
Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe

---------
Foster Program & Volunteer Management Specialist
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-23-2022 11:42 AM
From: Malinda Huggans
Subject: Fostering Decision Making

Thank you Erin, 
What does your foster orientation look like?

------------------------------
Malinda Huggans
Mono County Animal Services
7609325635

Original Message:
Sent: 08-23-2022 11:35 AM
From: ERIN ELLIS
Subject: Fostering Decision Making

Hi There,

Our fosters go through orientation and foster training. After that we take a look at their foster application (we have an app for fosters as well as general vols) and then we add our fosters on to a foster list. I've attached our foster application so you can see how we match our pets to people for fostering. Very similar to our adoption process. We're a small shelter and have a lot of pets in foster on a very consistent basis. Hope that helps!

------------------------------
Erin Ellis
Community Engagement Director
Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe

---------
Foster Program & Volunteer Management Specialist

Original Message:
Sent: 08-23-2022 11:00 AM
From: Malinda Huggans
Subject: Fostering Decision Making

I would love to hear about foster approval processes for other departments, and guidelines for choosing the right foster animal for each foster family. I would imagine it would be a similar process as with the adoption process. The main difference of course is that the animal still belongs to us and we need to be able to trust the foster to follow the rules. Does anyone have red flag insights to share or some good questions to help guide us when choosing the right animal with the right foster family? If you have policies guiding staff through the process that would be very helpful. I believe it's most common to have managers approve foster applicants, but we have a bit of a challenge with that. I am the only manager for this department, we operate two shelters with one shelter attendant per shelter (3 total attendants, one main attendant per shelter and a floater between the two covering their weekends).  I could approve the applications, but the decision making with matching animals to the fosters would be up to the staff, since they spend more time with the animals and know their behavior. We are looking for some good guidelines to assist our staff. I wonder if we should do the system where I assign a certain level of clearance based on the foster's experience (we need to develop a good questionnaire to help guide that decision), and staff can assign the animal a level of clearance for this program, such as fosters with a color coded sticker, based on their experience, will have clearance to foster animals that have the same color coded sticker based on their behavior evaluations.  I would love to hear what's working for everyone else out there. 
Thank you!

#FosterPrograms

------------------------------
Malinda Huggans
Director of Animal Services
Mono County, CA
760-932-5635
mhuggans@mono.ca.gov
------------------------------

Hi Malinda,
These are really good questions. Here are some tips for making fostering easily and accessible to your community while ensuring that fosters and pets are safe and have the support they need:

• Similarly to Adopters Welcome, consider an approach to foster that embraces community members, encourages them to foster, and helps them and their pets succeed.
• Start from a place of trust.  Practice and create a culture of inclusivity by trying to match people to pets. Rather than "weeding out" applicants, take a conversational approach. If someone wants to help, try to find your way to a yes. Barriers marginalize people, and can perpetuate discrimination in your organization, regardless of the intent.
• Give all fosters basic training. This can be done in a low-barrier way online or even 1-on-1 when they come to the shelter. In addition to helping fosters have safe and enjoyable fostering experiences, our research has shown that having training is a big factor in foster retention.
• Make information for fosters, such as program rules and the foster manual, super easy to access. Several shelters have devoted a webpage to their current fosters, who know they can go there for resources and contact information. Examples: Pima Animal Care Center, KC Pet Project
• Create a checklist for foster pick-ups, so you can make sure fosters are getting all the essential information and reminders (for example, let's say fosters aren't allowed to take foster dogs to dog parks, and this is an important rule. You may want to add this to the foster manual, have it written on your foster resource page and say it as a reminder at pickup to make sure fosters get it.
• Matching fosters and pets should be a conversation. I worry that having a system of clearances will be a barrier to getting pets into foster homes. If you're worried about mismatches happening, I wonder if it might make more sense to put a flag on certain pets whose fosters may need additional counseling and conversation, such as big dogs whose behavior is deteriorating in the kennel. For these few pets, maybe have a manager speak with the foster caregiver after foster staff do the match and foster counseling, so the foster would just get some additional counseling and support. This would be similar to the Center for Shelter Dogs' Special Adoptions.

Also, if you like, I'm available to meet with you anytime to brainstorm solutions, troubleshoot, answer questions and connect you with foster resources. If you'd like to meet, you can can pick a time on my Calendly, and I'll add the Zoom link as soon as it creates the invite: https://calendly.com/duer/fosterconsult  

------------------------------
Kelly Duer
Senior Outreach Specialist
Maddie's Fund
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 08-23-2022 11:00 AM
From: Malinda Huggans
Subject: Fostering Decision Making

I would love to hear about foster approval processes for other departments, and guidelines for choosing the right foster animal for each foster family. I would imagine it would be a similar process as with the adoption process. The main difference of course is that the animal still belongs to us and we need to be able to trust the foster to follow the rules. Does anyone have red flag insights to share or some good questions to help guide us when choosing the right animal with the right foster family? If you have policies guiding staff through the process that would be very helpful. I believe it's most common to have managers approve foster applicants, but we have a bit of a challenge with that. I am the only manager for this department, we operate two shelters with one shelter attendant per shelter (3 total attendants, one main attendant per shelter and a floater between the two covering their weekends).  I could approve the applications, but the decision making with matching animals to the fosters would be up to the staff, since they spend more time with the animals and know their behavior. We are looking for some good guidelines to assist our staff. I wonder if we should do the system where I assign a certain level of clearance based on the foster's experience (we need to develop a good questionnaire to help guide that decision), and staff can assign the animal a level of clearance for this program, such as fosters with a color coded sticker, based on their experience, will have clearance to foster animals that have the same color coded sticker based on their behavior evaluations.  I would love to hear what's working for everyone else out there. 
Thank you!

#FosterPrograms

------------------------------
Malinda Huggans
Director of Animal Services
Mono County, CA
760-932-5635
mhuggans@mono.ca.gov
------------------------------