You are on this page: About the Revitalizing Recruitment Project
Revitalizing Recruitment is intended to be a practical, easy-to-read summary of promising and best practices currently used in recruitment and retention of foster/adoptive families. It was developed to help local districts and voluntary agencies meet the challenge of providing qualified, well-prepared foster/adoptive families that can meet the needs of children and youth coming into care.
Resources and connections to resources are provided in several ways:
- Where practices are described or highlighted (“Put It into Practice”), links and web page addresses are provided as sources for more information.
- A list of “Additional Resources” at the end of each section also provides web page addresses, if available, and a brief summary of the resource content.
- Some sections include one-page descriptions of practice models and their evidence bases.
- Links to each Appendix leads you to copies of fact sheets and guides related to topics described in each section.
- References are provided according to American Psychological Association (APA) style and are listed at the end of each section.
Strategies for Recruitment
- How do we Revitalize Recruitment?
- Driving Recruitment with Data
- Kin-First Recruitment
- Targeted vs. General Recruitment
- Child-Focused Recruitment
- Hard-to-Find Homes
- Customer Service for Retention and Support
- Social Media: A New Way to Communicate
Where This Project Came From
Revitalizing Recruitment was written and compiled as part of the Innovations in Family Recruitment program, funded by a diligent recruitment grant to the New York State Office of Children and Family Services from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau. The current five-year effort builds on knowledge obtained from prior federally-funded programs related to foster and adoptive parent recruitment, including New York State’s Longest Waiting Children and A Parent for Every Child. Innovations in Family Recruitment continues this work with an examination of best and promising practices related to recruitment and retention of foster/adoptive families.
This project is funded by the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under a Cooperative Agreement, Grant Number 90CO-1109. The contents of this publication are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the New York State Office of Children and Family Services.