Ways to Recruit Foster Parents

Community Involvement

• Start your recruiting efforts by getting key members of your community involved and create a task force of volunteers. You will want volunteers to have public relations, marketing and fund-raising experience or knowledge. Get a representative from a foster parent association to help too. A well-known and respected community figure should head the task force.

  Your task force should outline what the needs are for foster parents and what the goals are for the task force. You should meet on a regular basis, such as over breakfast once a month, to produce optimum results. Each person should have a well-defined role, as well as a goal to meet in order to stay focused and achieve results.

Advertising

• You must get the word out about your foster care needs through advertising campaigns, ideally year-round as opposed to periodically, according to Kathy Barbell and Lisa Sheikh, foster care recruiting experts. Effective advertising campaigns focus on how foster parents help children and possibly even save their lives. They also speak about financial compensation for becoming a foster parent.

  Good places to advertise are in newspapers and on the radio, Internet or local television shows, both commercial and public broadcasting. Public broadcasting will not run paid advertising, but they may air a community outreach type of spot. Contact your local public broadcasting station for the specific way in which you can advertise with them. Besides advertising in newspapers, you can try contacting reporters who cover child-related material to see whether they will write a feature story on one of your foster children. You can also send the newspaper a press release, and radio and television stations periodically run public service announcements. See if you can get organizations with websites that your target audience visits, to feature one of your ads or to link to your website.

  Consider your audience. For example, if Latino foster parents are needed, design those ads in Spanish.

Speak at Functions

• Try to get yourself on the schedule to speak before groups such as area PTAs, neighborhood associations and chambers of commerce.

  Set up a booth at local fairs and festivals. Have some giveaway items that will make people more likely to visit your booth.

Plan for the Calls

• With all the community outreach you do, you do not want to lose people when they call. Return people̵7;s phone calls within 24 hours. Get the necessary contact information first such as their names, addresses, phone numbers, emails and ages, and then set up a time when you can conduct a proper interview. You will want to find out the applicant̵7;s education level, skills, languages spoken, volunteer or fostering experience and availability. You should also conduct a background check.