WELFARE - Developing Great Foster Programs, Webinars

Foster programs have grown and evolved over the years - beginning as an option to relieve the pressure on overflowing shelters, to an opportunity to address behaviour and training issues, to organizations that are foster-only and have no facility.

Now, fostering has become vital to the success of animal welfare and rescue organizations and an essential component of their business.

ASPCA Professional offers a variety of webinars to help organizations build and maximize their foster program.

Foster Programs: Animal Selection & Family Recruitment covers:

• Recruiting foster families
• Choosing the best animals for foster care
• Assigning animals to foster homes
• Paperwork and systems to track animals
• Scheduling foster recheck appointments
• Sending supplies to foster animals
• Retention and engagement of foster volunteers.

Part two of the series, Making Your Foster Program Thrive: Preventing Mt. Kitten, has representatives from Charleston Animal Society explain what they offer fosters including:

• Education
• Supplies
• Training and foster care manuals (sample manuals will be provided)
• Veterinary care, including spay/neuter surgery and emergency care
• Spay/neuter events, including a pre-kitten season event
• Promotions and marketing support.

Organizations that adopt through their foster homes may be interested in the Foster-based Adoptions webinar.

Since 1998, Seattle Animal Shelter has mobilized and empowered a team of foster parents to adopt animals directly from their homes.

In the webinar their experts discuss how to:

• Set up a foster program structure
• Use volunteer case managers
• Select animals for foster
• Run a foster-based adoption process.

INNOVATE - Assisted Living Residents Save Orphan Kittens

The Pima Animal Care Centre (PACC) has partnered with Catalina Springs Memory Care in Oro Valley to provide the bottle feeding, socialization and love orphaned kittens need to survive and thrive.

(Pima Animal Care Center)

This innovative program was seen by PACC as a way to save kittens and by the Catalina Springs Memory Care board as a positive way to enrich its residents’ lives.

Catalina Springs serves the special needs of individuals with Alzheimer's disease, dementia and other forms of memory loss.

“To some it may seem peculiar at first: Residents who are in need of around-the-clock care themselves, given the task to care for these young kittens,” Catalina Springs Memory Care executive director Sharon Mercer, said in a statement.

“But there are skills, emotions and needs that do not just leave a person with Dementia or Alzheimer’s. The desire to give love and receive love remains. The kittens have given us the opportunity to nurture this human condition that lies in each and every one of our residents.”

Catalina Springs staff are involved to ensure cats don’t miss a feeding and all their needs are met.

The first two kittens to go through the program, Peaches and Turtle, arrived in mid-October and with great weight gain and socialization, they are thriving.

The residents seem to love it too.

"They [seem to] recognize them as babies, and the human instinct to nurture just kicks in automatically," Rebecca Hamilton, health service director at Catalina Springs, told Upworthy.

"We have noticed that [in] interacting with the kittens, we have residents who struggled with putting complete sentences together, or struggled to find words, could all of a sudden communicate," Hamilton continued. "They could look at you and say, 'This kitten is hungry' or 'I love this little baby.'"

The program gives individuals residing in an assisted living facility a sense of purpose and improves the quality of their lives.

Its success showcases the power and beauty of the human animal bond.

While animal therapy has been shown to have a positive impact, adding the extra dimension of providing care and having responsibility for the animals seems to take the outcome to another level.

It won’t be surprising to see other animal and assisted living organizations implementing similar programs.

Westin Hotel Ottawa Fosters Rescue Dogs

Most every humane society, SPCA and pet rescue has a foster program where individuals take animals into their homes prior to adoption, but the Westin in Ottawa may be the first hotel that is a dog foster home.

Taco

Since November, Ottawa Dog Rescue has partnered with the hotel on a program called Westin Wags where a rescue dog lives in the Westin lobby and hotel staff and guests become his foster family. The foster dog has kennel space, with staff and registered guests able to take him for daily walks.

When choosing dogs, Ottawa Dog Rescue focuses on the animal’s sociability, size and tendency not to bark. Two puppies, a Chihuhua named Taco, and a border collie mix called Ellie have successfully been fostered and adopted through the program to date.

Ellie

 

While the dogs at the hotel are giving the guests a taste of being at home, they are also getting great exposure to find a new life-long loving family.

It is hoped that this successful program will encourage other businesses to become foster homes for rescue animals.