Foster Care Association of Oklahoma

PROJECT PURPOSE

Almost 50% of foster families quit in the first year. This is no longer acceptable. Foster Care and Adoption Association of Oklahoma (FCAO) is laser focused on the retention of the foster family as they take care of the most vulnerable children in Oklahoma. Without a committed, well supported foster family, our children are forced to group homes and shelters. OUR PROGRAM: The Foster Parent Peer Mentor Program recognizes the value of experienced foster parents who pass on the knowledge, skills, and support to foster families who are just beginning. Our Foster Parent mentors teach new families how to manage the long list of expectations, including appropriately advocating for their foster children, navigating the court process, how to create healthy relationships with biological families, and manage trauma and services. Without proper mentorship, the speed for which these skills are needed can cause frustration and struggles that leave foster families feeling overwhelmed with how to help the children in their care. Given proper support, our families have the capacity to create homes that provide a loving space for healing while impacting children for a lifetime. We want to duplicate these well trained families while focusing on the retention of a newly courageous foster family.

EVIDENCE

Foster parent mentorship is globally recognized as the #1 effective resource for foster family retention (College of Social Work). Imagine you?re a new foster parent or kinship caregiver, it?s nerve-wracking. No matter how prepared you are, once a child walks into your home, it can feel overwhelming. You ultimately need someone who understands. Foster parents often times feel isolated and have questions and fears and don?t know who to turn to. With the need of foster parents being so great we cannot afford to lose good families for reasons that can be avoided, such as providing support. No one can go through this process alone. Not successfully. Being a foster or kinship parent can be incredibly demanding. Research indicates that caregivers often struggle to find support. We offer parenting strategies unique to providing support to the most vulnerable.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

We will ultimately be supporting our most vulnerable; our children in foster care. We will be doing this by supporting the foster families responsible for the love and care of these children. Covid has further isolated an already isolated community. Foster parenting can be an incredibly lonely feeling. Our mentor program tackles this head on and assures these families no longer have to do it alone.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

Data collection is vital. Tracking the success of retention will be done in collaboration with OkDHS. A system is already in place to track the most accurate forms of placement stability, retention, and foster parent satisfaction. We believe that by adequately tracking all measurements of success, we will have a vast understanding of the importance of a foster parent peer mentoring program. We desire to see Oklahoma lead the charge in quality service for foster and adoptive families. Ultimately becoming a Top 10 State in foster family retention by protecting the recruitment efforts of Oklahoma Human Services and effectively retaining quality foster families who work and serve children that are placed in out-of-home care. Surveys will be sent out to each mentee to gather insight on how beneficial and necessary they feel the peer mentor program has been to their family. In addition, to track the hope of our mentees, they will complete an assessment at the beginning and at the end of the program to determine their satisfaction and retention. FCAO will use collected data to determine the program's effectiveness and make changes as appropriate for enhancing the program.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma