How to Cut Foster Home Wait Times With On-Deck System

It’s getting late—do you know where your foster families are? An on-deck system can help you get kittens (and other animals!) into foster homes as soon as possible by letting you know in real time which families are ready and waiting.

Case in Point

The on-deck system is used by the ASPCA’s Los Angeles Pee Wee Foster Program in conjunction with online foster orientation, and the results are impressive: The L.A. team has no traditional constraints, no adoption center or on-site clinic and no centralized community of supporters. But its virtual operations helped increase the Baldwin Park Animal Care Center’s kitten live release rate by 88% in the first eight months of operation!

After attending online orientation to receive training and learn about what to expect, foster hopefuls are invited to fill out a survey indicating they are ready to welcome and care for kittens. The survey is used to populate a list of available homes—and get kittens moved out of the shelter and into foster homes as quickly as possible.

Ready to give it a try?

What You’ll Need

• A tool that supports an online survey and populates results into a tracking sheet. Some examples include:
  • Smartsheet
  • Airtable
  • Google form
• Optional: An electronic signing tool for important documents like foster waivers.

The L.A. team recommends that the following questions be included in the survey:

• Start date and end date that foster families are available for their next litter of kittens.
• The age of kittens they feel most comfortable and prepared to care for.
• If they are willing and able to foster kittens with special or medical needs (i.e. ringworm, upper respiratory infection, etc.).
• What their experience level is with bottle feeding, administering medication etc.
• What supplies they have already or would need.

Need an example? You can check out the L.A. team’s questionnaire here.

Why We Love It

• Keeps fosters engaged and tells foster coordinators immediately what homes are open.
• Reduces wait time and shelter stay for kittens.
• Get more kittens placed with foster families.
• No mass emails to fosters daily, which makes the urgent emails you do send stand out even more!

Now You Try It

When doing the on-deck program, the L.A foster team recommends the survey be filled out by fosters routinely—not just when they first sign up—so that it remains timely.

Remember, this resource works perfectly hand-in-hand with the online orientation how-to.

And be sure you download resources like this comprehensive feline foster care guide to set your foster families up for success!