Volunteers are one of the greatest untapped resources in foster care.
In almost every community, there are people who care deeply about children and families. Most will never become foster parents. But many would gladly bring a meal, give a ride, help with homework, watch the kids, or simply become a consistent presence in a family’s life.
The question isn’t whether people are willing to help.
The question is: How much should we ask them to carry?
At Fostering Hope, nearly 20 years of working with foster families and volunteers has taught us something important: if we want people to show up for the long haul, we have to build volunteer roles that ordinary people can actually sustain.
That means asking volunteers to do something incredibly important—but not asking them to do everything.
When do you rely on professionals?
When it comes to providing teams of volunteers to foster families, we are often asked who leads those teams, specifically if they are self-led by a fellow volunteer.
At Fostering Hope, teams are led by staff coordinators trained in social work for one simple reason: foster care is complicated. A family may be navigating caseworkers, court hearings, biological family relationships, school challenges, medical appointments, therapy, confidentiality requirements, trauma-related behaviors, changing case plans, and an uncertain future for the children in their home.
Volunteers don’t need to become experts in all of that to make a difference. In fact, we don’t think they should have to. Our coordinators provide the structure behind each volunteer team. They recruit and screen volunteers, help establish appropriate boundaries, understand the child welfare environment, check in with families and volunteers, address challenges, track participation and outcomes, and help keep the needs of the family at the center.
That allows volunteers to focus on what they can do extraordinarily well: Build relationships.
Our coordinators support them in that, too. They help them understand – and not judge – the foster parent. They are there for them when a child’s behavior is puzzling or the family is walking through grief.
Our volunteer retention rate is 92%, and we attribute that in large part to the reliance on talented, trained staff who sit with these teams.
When is the ask too big?
Professional coordination is only half of the equation. We also have to be realistic about how much we’re asking each individual volunteer to do. It can be tempting to design volunteer programs around the extraordinary person—the volunteer who has endless availability, takes every call, handles every crisis, and seemingly never burns out.
Most people aren’t that person. They have jobs. Children. Aging parents. Vacations. Busy seasons. Health issues. Soccer practices. Full calendars.
And that’s okay.
Fostering Hope doesn’t need one person to become everything to a family. Instead, we build teams of 6–10 people around one foster family. Each volunteer makes a manageable minimum commitment: participate in one team meeting and provide at least one act of service each month.
One person might bring dinner. Another gives a ride. Someone else babysits. Another helps with homework. Someone attends a child’s game or concert. And over time, those seemingly ordinary acts can grow into something much more meaningful: trusted relationships.
Nobody has to do everything because everybody does something.
Building the village for the long haul
A key concern for foster parents is whether or not accepting help from others will lead to a revolving door. Not only is that stressful for them, but it can be downright harmful to children who have come to expect that people come and go in their lives.
Fostering Hope’s approach is designed for longevity – both professional facilitation and the team-based approach are focused on not just getting people to say yes, but to do so sustainably.
And so far, that’s working. In Colorado Springs, where Fostering Hope originated, volunteers have served as long the organization has existed. Consider that for a moment – 20 years of deeply relational volunteering with families through their highs and lows.
Often, even volunteers whose families quit fostering continue to serve their families unofficially for years to come. At some point you are no longer a volunteer – you are a friend. And that happens by design.