Ideas for Recruitment and Retention from the Casey Family Programs’ Breakthrough Series Collaborative includes:
• Recruiting Culturally and Racially Diverse Families
• Working with Faith-based Organizations
• Recruiting Families for Older Youth and Siblings
• Retaining Resource Families
• Listening to Youth in Placement
(Posted 12/11)
The
Rural Adoption Recruiter: A Guide to Growing Families This
simple guide has great ideas for not only rural and adoption recruiters,
but also has ideas that apply for anyone wanting to recruit foster
and adoptive families. (Posted 12/11)
Sibling
Placement: The Importance of the Sibling Relationship for Children
in Foster Care by
Michelle Cohn April 2008. Includes best practice tips, model programs,
statistics, legislation and resources. (Posted 12/11)
Forging
Connections: Challenges and Opportunities for Older Caregivers Raising
Children A
Report by the Forging Connections Policy Group convened by the New
York Council On Adoptable Children, Inc. (Posted August, 2011)
Training
Kin to be Foster Parents: Best Practices from the Field
by Child
Focus, 2008. This article provides an overview of efforts to adapt
foster parent training to the unique needs and circumstances of
kinship caregivers, including the following topics:
- Federal licensing
requirements, including requirements for foster care training
as a condition of licensing
- Limitations of traditional
foster parent training for kinship caregivers
- State and county
efforts to develop foster parent training programs tailored specifically
for kin
- Common themes related
to kin-specific training
- Questions that states
and localities should consider as they develop kin-specific training.
(Posted May 19, 2011)
A
Web-Based Concurrent Tool Planning Kit,
by The
National Resource Center for Foster Care.
This toolkit is intended as an online tool for states and tribes
where promising practices, programs and resources are made available.
Since this publication is a web-based toolkit we plan to regularly
update it as new programs, practices, publications and policies
that focus on concurrent planning become available.
(Posted March, 2011)
Guide
to Supporting Foster Parents outlines
the support needs of foster parents. The support needs were identified
through current research and data obtained from previous Wisconsin
initiatives. These needs were organized into six broader categories:
Foster Parent Development, Emotional Well-Being, Professional Member
of the Team, Resource Support, Crisis Needs and Financial Support.
The Guide to Supporting Foster Parents provides a range of suggestions
for providing targeted support within each category based on the
developmental functioning of the foster parent.
Lean
on Me: Support and Minority Outreach for Grandparents Raising Grandchild
(c)
2002. This comprehensive guide offers a lot of information, all
the while offering separate sections for African American, Hispanic
and Native American families.
The
Needs of Foster Parents: A Qualitative Study of Motivation, Support,
and Retention Tracy (2006)
This
study examined motivation, support, and retention of
foster parents in a child welfare agency in nine Canadian
counties. Results showed that the most frequent motivations for
being foster parents were intrinsic, altruistic motivators of wanting
to make a difference in children’s lives and a desire to have
children in the home.
Family
to Family: Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care. Recruiting, Training
and Support, The Essential Tools of Foster Care
A
guide providing concrete recruitment and retention tools for rural,
urban, public, and private agencies beyond the traditional approaches.
Emphasizes a family-centered approach to foster care by seeking
placements for children by tapping into resources within their own
communities.
Family
to Family: Tools for Rebuilding Foster Care: Lessons Learned
Tested
and proven practical strategies used for five years by child welfare
agencies nationwide to reform foster care and the child welfare
system. Emphasizes active involvement, teaming, and ownership by
staff and community to improve care to children and families.
Retaining
Recruited Resource Families
Often
the focus and goal of agencies is to acquire resource families for
foster care and adoption. It is important however, that once these
families connect with the agencies, that they be retained. The responsibility
for retaining resource families is agency wide, involving staff
at all levels. This article will provide guidance to develop a retention
plan for resource families.
Finding,
Preparing and Supporting Foster and Adoptive Parent Resources
This issue of Permanency Planning Today, the semi-annual newsletter
of the National Resource Center for Foster Care and Permanency Planning
from the Hunter College School of Social Work of the City University
of New York, was published in 2000. It is a compilation of six peer
reviewed articles about the recruitment and retention of foster
parents.
GLBT
Communities & Adoption: Courting an Untapped Resource
Opening doors to adoption and foster care to the GLBT community,
thus creating more options for waiting children. Concrete approaches
to create agency policies, advertising, as well as application and
interview processes that are GLBT sensitive.
Breakthrough
Series Collaborative (BSC): Recruitment and Retention of Resource
Families
Teams
from state, county, and tribally administered child welfare agencies
come together to work on multiple ideas, strategies, and tools on
a very small scale in pilot sites. The most successful measurable
methods and strategies for recruitment of foster and adoptive families
are shared in this report.
Office
of Inspector General Report- 2002
Overview of the Nations’ foster care system concerning
recruitment and the changing needs of children within the foster
care system. Suggests enhancement of public education about foster
care and using the most effective and available recruitment tool—foster
parents.
Resource
Center on Family Practice and Permanency Planning-Power Point Presentation
2002 by Lorrie Lutz
Developing
unique recruitment plans to meet the child and community needs while
partnering with community based agencies for improved results.
Child
Welfare League of America: Recruiting Foster Parents-2000
A
resource handbook that provides tools for conducting needs assessment
of agencies and communities as well as outreach strategies and designs.
Targeted recruitment plans and working with media are also detailed.
Finding
African American Families for Foster Children: Tips for Workers
& Agencies
Creative
ideas on how to connect and partner with members and organizations
of the African-American community with non-traditional and effective
recruitment methods.
Parents
Play a Vital Role in Recruitment & Retention
Learn
how to promote the use of experienced foster and adopt parents as
“developers” to raise community awareness about foster
and adoptive care.
