Why It Matters
The Path to Healing
Children heal in the context of their everyday lives. When foster parents are supported, they are better able to provide the home environment children who have experienced trauma need: stability, enrichment, and connections. Stability provides safety and consistency. Enriching experiences build mastery, confidence, and agency. Lasting relationships offer repeated experiences of being known, valued, and able to trust. Together, these conditions create opportunities for healing—and can change what a young person believes about themselves, others, and what is possible for their future.
By the Numbers The Difference We See
How our model works
We Build Extended Families Around Foster Parents
Each foster family is surrounded by a dedicated team of 6–10 trained volunteers who walk alongside them for as long as they need—often for years. This team-based approach ensures that support is sustainable for the volunteers and life-changing for the family.
Reliable Presence
Showing Up for the Long Haul
We understand that stability is built over time. Our volunteers provide a consistent, reliable presence that foster parents can depend on, ensuring no family has to face the highs and lows of the journey alone.
Practical Support
Lightening the Load of Daily Life
Whether itˇs a retired teacher helping with math homework or a volunteer offering an extra set of hands during a busy week, we provide the tangible, practical help that makes a house feel like a home.
Relational Support
A Lifetime of Belonging
Our model is about building deep, lasting connections that extend for years. By surrounding families with a village of support, we create the safety and belonging children need to become stronger together.
Our Outcomes
Change that endures
We believe lasting change is built in the ordinary moments of everyday life. When foster parents are surrounded with practical support, they have greater capacity to create the stable, nurturing home children need—not just for a successful placement, but for healing. Rides to practice, help with homework, shared meals, encouragement, celebrations, and adults who keep showing up become repeated experiences of safety, belonging, mastery, and worth. Over time, those experiences can help heal what trauma has disrupted: a young person’s ability to trust, connect, believe in themselves, and imagine a future they have the power to shape.
- Learn more about how Fostering Hope addresses the foster care crisis.
Success Stories
Lives transformed by community
Date night saved my marriage
My husband and I were so overwhelmed by fostering that we had grown apart and weren’t sure our marriage would make it. Our team provided us a date night. Secretly, I didn’t even want to go because things had gotten so bad, but we reconnected that night and are now stronger than ever.
Volunteers help with what I can’t get to.
My volunteers read stories to my children and I am so grateful. This is something I desperately wanted for them but couldn’t do on my own.
It’s about feeling seen as a foster parent.
My team takes time to ask how I’m doing. It makes me feel so loved and seen
Prepared meals relieve a huge burden.
When my daughter experienced a severe mental health crisis, my team provided 14 meals in a row! This made all the difference in attending to her needs while supporting the rest of our family.
Our Research
How we know
Let’s start a conversation
Whether you have a question about our work, are ready to take the next step in becoming a partner, or simply want to stay updated on our progress, we’d love to hear from you.
What’s new at fostering hope usa
Our Latest News
Stay connected with the Fostering Hope community and learn how relational support is making a tangible difference in the lives of foster families across the country.
Our Impact
Frequently asked questions
How does Fostering Hope measure impact?
We track outcomes across the continuum of care—from foster parent sustainability and placement stability to education, housing, employment, and relationships in young adulthood. We use program data, participant feedback, external benchmarks, and independent evaluation to understand both immediate and long-term impact.
Has the Fostering Hope model been independently evaluated?
Yes. The Butler Institute for Families at the University of Denver conducted an independent mixed-methods evaluation examining our model, program data, and the experiences of foster parents, young people, volunteers, and staff. The evaluation affirmed key elements of our program model while identifying opportunities to strengthen longitudinal measurement and comparison data. A more comprehensive evaluation is planned as our evidence base grows.
How do you know Fostering Hope is contributing to these outcomes?
Our data show strong outcomes among participating families and young people, but we are careful not to claim causation where it has not been established. Our independent evaluation found promising results while recommending stronger comparison data and longitudinal measurement—work we are continuing to build.
What outcomes matter most to Fostering Hope?
We look beyond whether a placement simply stays intact. We want children to experience the stability, enrichment, and connections that support healing and development—and ultimately to enter adulthood with education, safe housing, meaningful relationships, employment, and the agency to build healthy, independent lives.
How will you maintain outcomes as Fostering Hope grows?
National growth is being designed around fidelity, not simply expansion. Affiliates will implement shared program standards, training, data systems, and outcome measures, with ongoing coaching and accountability from Fostering Hope USA. This allows us to evaluate whether the model—and its outcomes—can be replicated across communities.
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