Fostering Hope Foundation

Fostering Hope aims to fundamentally reverse the abysmal outcomes plaguing children who grow up in foster care, and in doing so end the inter-generational cycle of abuse and neglect. It starts with foster parent retention. Most foster parents are committed, hardworking people who have a heart for helping children in need, and they are the best equipped to do so. Yet fostering is isolating, grueling work, and burnout is high. By providing practical and emotional support to the parents, we contribute to a healing environment for the children. The disruption rate, in which children “bounce around” from home to home, has declined from 1/3 to 1/10. Most foster parents share they would have quit were it not for their team. Children are doing better in school and exhibiting healthier behaviors.

Our strategy for teens/young adults is similar, but age-adapted to their needs. We have cobbled together a comprehensive support system that includes deep, long-term relationships with healthy adults; connections to employers; transportation; and housing. In effect, we are leveling the playing field in a way that provides these youth with the same kind of resources and safety that most young adults find in their own families or communities naturally.

Our strategy is rooted in the bottom-up principle that the foster parents and the youth who are aging out of foster care are in the best position to know what they need for success, and we consider it our role to develop and refine the model that will meet that need.

The first step in our strategy is to surround each foster family with a team of volunteers who will function as an extended family to the foster family and will remain with them for the long term. The teams directly engage with the parents by shouldering some of their burden in practical and meaningful ways in order to lessen stress while providing formative developmental experiences for the children they care for. Support teams typically:

• Assist with household maintenance and meals.
• Help transport children to appointments and family visitations.
• Tutor children and help with their involvement in athletic and recreational activities.
• Help children build relationships and connections within civic and faith communities.
• Become an emotional support system for the foster parents.

Selected from faith communities, the volunteers are chosen because of their caring, loving nature and their willingness to serve as needed by the foster parent.

Secondly, when ready, teenage youth in these families naturally and gradually enter our support system specially designed to meet the needs of emerging adulthood. Teens and young adults can remain a part of this community, known as Fostering Adulthood, until they no longer need us, which is typically into their late 20s. It provides ongoing opportunity to develop relationships with concerned adults from the community that are desirous of participating in the lives of these youth. We also aid with transportation, work, housing, and life skills.

Over the last 16 years we have assembled a comprehensive community network of faith communities, businesses, volunteers, donors and child welfare partners to do this work, so that no one organization or individual is overburdened, and so that we are not over-reliant on any one source of support to conduct our mission. To date, we have developed a network of 30+ faith communities who support our mission with some 200-plus volunteers per year. Most of these volunteers serve for many years. We also have 15+ small businesses that provide job opportunities for our youth. Multiple child placement agencies, contracted through the Dept. Of Human Services, refer families to us, and we have earned the complete trust and endorsement of the system. Similarly, we have developed a broad and diverse mix of donors, with more than 95% of our budget coming from fundraising activities such as grant writing and soliciting for donations. In recent years, we have invested in capacity-building initiatives to improve our data gathering and management, administrative processes, and management so that we are capable of long-term, sustained growth.

In 16 years of operation, we have been able to engage the broader community to help us implement a model for supporting foster families and improving the quality of care experienced by their foster children. Starting with two foster families and an untested model, today we have served more than 150 families and 900 children, in addition to about 40 young adults who have exited the system. Nearly 800 volunteers have provided thousands of hours of service, which amounts to $2.2 million in value, based on commonly used standards for assigning worth to volunteer hours. Most importantly, however, are the outcomes.

For families:
-The disruption rate, which effectively measures how much children “bounce around,” has declined from 1/3 to 1/10.
-Almost all foster families say they contemplated quitting but did not do so because of the support of their team.
-The adoption rate for children who are unable to be reunifies is 3x higher than families without Fostering Hope teams.
-Children can participate in extracurricular activities and perform better in school than unsupported peers.

For teens/young adults:
-90% have graduated, compared to 23% for Colorado.
-Almost all are employed, while nationally most former foster youth are unemployed/underemployed.
-Fewer than 20% have experienced homelessness and/or incarceration, compared to 50% nationally within the first 2 years of aging out.

What's next?
1. Add between 10-15 new support teams to fully meet the need in El Paso County, in which families do not linger on a waiting list.
2. Explore national replication of our model to other communities.