How foster care helped Coco blossom🌻
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When rescue pets are looked after in a foster home, they have better outcomes than if they were kept in stressful shelter environments. Having pets in the care of safe and loving foster homes also positively impacts the mental health and job satisfaction of the people whose job it is to care for these pets.
This is why it’s such a hugely positive step when progressive councils like Wollongong City establish foster care programs for the cats and dogs that come into their care.
This financial year alone (2024-25), Wollongong’s foster program, Wollongong Pet Connection, has helped 300 cats and dogs find loving new homes.
We spoke with Daniel Kennedy, Project Director at Wollongong Pet Connection about their successful foster care program, established last year with guidance from Felicity (Flick) Hillenaar at Sydney Dogs and Cats Home, where she has run a successful foster program for several years.
The motivation and benefits of a foster program
After a change in their impounding service provider, it was clear to Wollongong City Council that they needed to look into different options for a new service. They were driven to establish best practices for the pets they were rehoming and aimed to become industry leaders.
“We wanted to establish a new, unique and innovative model and see what was out there. We spoke to lots of different people, we can't do the usual local government thing and just go and talk to other councils. We reached out to the New South Wales Animal Welfare League, Sydney Dogs and Cats Home and other big players in the industry and talked to them about what they see as best practice, and we could see the benefit in that.” Daniel explains.
The foster program has not just led to a higher adoption rate but also better matches and outcomes for the pets in care. When investigating a foster care program, it was clear that this model of care would result in better outcomes for the welfare of pets and their rehoming rates, but it would also be financially beneficial.
“We could see not only from a cost perspective that it's actually cheaper to keep animals in a foster care environment and it also reduces the pressure on your capacity within your facilities. More importantly, it's an improvement for the welfare of the animals in foster care and it also greatly improves their chance of being rehomed, being in that home environment.
You're also getting better content from the foster carer, which isn’t just more detailed information about their behaviour, but even better photos and videos, which greatly assist in their rehoming. The quality and the quantity of the adoptions has definitely improved significantly, and it all comes back to that feedback and content we're being provided,” Daniel tells us.
The council has now grown and developed the foster care program to maximise its positive impact on pets in their care. Daniel explains, “We've even toyed around with the idea of short-term cycling a number of animals through particular foster carers to do shorter stays with them, but we'll help those in those short stays, they can provide us with overviews of how the animal behaves in a home environment, give us the content that we need, the videos and the cute photos and those types of things, rather than them holding on to one cat, for instance, for a month, if they can look after four cats, so one cat a week over that month, it's going to help get that content that we're looking for. It’s definitely helped us continue to reduce the euthanasia rate within our service. We're always trying to lower that number wherever possible.”
Collaborating for better outcomes
Collaboration with Sydney Dogs and Cats Home and learning from their experience was crucial when developing the foster care program, by taking their learnings and applying them to Wollongong’s circumstances.
“We worked closely with Sydney Dogs and Cats Home and used a lot of their model to look at what could work for us. It's not exactly a direct carbon copy, but we used a lot of their groundwork to establish what our program would look like. We've aimed to create a zero-cost model for our foster carers. We've ensured that our foster carers don't have any financial burden for the animal that's in their care, whether it's veterinary treatment or just bedding, toys, food, all those things that you need to provide care and welfare for an animal. We ensure that we supply that upfront and top it up when required.”
Daniel states that some of the most useful advice from Felicity was to have ‘the right people in the right jobs’ when running the foster care program. “We're really lucky to have Emily [Middleton], who's a Foster Care Rehoming Officer run the program. She's really passionate and engaged.” The person running a foster care program needs to have great communication and people skills for the success of the program, as it’s a very people-centric role.
Daniel tells us that the most important advice he received from SDCH was related to looking after and supporting foster carers;
“The piece of standout advice I got was to work on the retention of your carers and acknowledge that at the end of the day, they're doing you a favour. What they're doing is a great support to us, and we need to demonstrate our gratitude. We want them to feel like they're valued and not burdened with anything.”
As part of its community-building work, Wollongong Pet Connection has worked hard to make its Facebook page positive and engaging and encourages the community to get involved in fostering.
“It's important to get those conversations going with the community and like most council programs, they usually fall over without the assistance or input of the community.
I think it’s important to look at your more established groups and talk to your local rehoming organisations about what they're doing, what they're trying to achieve and what their goals are and work with them. I think if you can demonstrate some goodwill with them and show them that your values are similar to theirs and what you're trying to achieve, it just sort of helps everything skyrocket.”
Managing risk
One challenge that can arise when establishing a foster program is how to mitigate risk. Through the consultation of SDCH as well as their own legal team, WPC was able to ensure that terms were included in their agreement, to reduce the liability and risk of events such as property damage and foster carers refusing to give the pet back when it’s time for them to be adopted. They made it clear to foster carers that it was their responsibility to ensure their home was suitable and pet-proofed before taking in a pet.
A potential risk can arise when a foster carer takes in a pet with a history of escaping. Daniel highlights the importance of clearly communicating the pet’s needs and history with a foster carer, and providing support and supplies if required.
“We acknowledge that some of the dogs going into foster care are escape artists and getting out and roaming is usually part of the reason why they've ended up with us in the first place. So initially, we try to make it clear to foster carers that there may be some behavioural issues associated with the dog.
If a dog escapes for the first time, we contact the foster carer and return the animal to them, or if the animal's been returned to them without our intervention, we offer them further support to see what additional things we can supply to prevent the animal from escaping, like a crate, tether or harness. Then if we've offered those supports, the support's been taken up and the dog escapes again, we take the dog back and place it in the facility. However though, this has only ever occurred once.
When establishing a foster program, my advice from a council perspective is to just take the step. As councillors, we obviously have to be very risk averse and we have to look at the risk versus reward. And in my opinion, the reward is worth the risk for this program, it has such a positive impact on so many fronts. The obvious one is the outcome for the animals, but also the community engagement and the reputation-building and all those types of things. It is worth the risk.”
Better outcomes for people
Sadly, negative work-related impacts on wellbeing are common in the sector, with 93% of PetRescue members surveyed for the PetRescue 2021-22 State of Pet Adoption Report experiencing burnout and compassion fatigue. As well as positively impacting pet adoption rates, Wollongong’s foster program has had a positive impact on staff morale and mental health, particularly that of its service providers, who are responsible for euthanasia.
“It definitely helps our service partner relationships because there are negative elements to this service and there are times when we have to consider the euthanasia of animals. Not only us, but our service partners sometimes struggle with that. I think by having programs like this in place to show that we're trying to reduce pressure on our capacity, and we're trying to promote more rehoming and better rehoming, our service partners can see that we're trying to do everything that we can to avoid euthanasia and it's an absolute last-ditch thing if we do that.”
Moving to a foster program also helped to strengthen community relationships and perceptions of Wollongong Pet Connection.
“It's definitely helped us connect with the community on a different level. When we first moved away from our previous service provider, there was a level of scrutiny within the community that we were not being active in this space and we needed to do better, essentially. I think this has helped us to demonstrate to the community that we are serious about the animals in our care and we want what's best for them.
For the most part, people understand the significant benefits the program has, and the message is out that we do care - we're not running a regimented service here where we hold the animals for the minimum days required and just move them to the next one. It's more invested than that. And I think it's not just about the foster program, but it's some of our messaging that goes out as well, when people see that we've had a dog in care for approximately 100 days or thereabouts, and, we're still looking to find them a home or we're still trying to get them into foster care. They can see that it's not what most people perceive council impounding services to be.”
Daniel says that fostering is a rewarding experience, but it’s important that foster carers are patient and allow the pet to decompress;
“It's rewarding to be involved in fostering. My piece of advice for anyone who's going to foster pets is to be patient. Even if they've been placed in foster care straight away, these animals have usually had a pretty ordinary 24 to 48 hours beforehand. They've been removed from their usual home and they're in new environments - just be patient and allow them some time to settle in. If you do that, and you at least give them a three-day window, you're going to see some significant improvement in their behaviour and that's when you get to reap the rewards of fostering.”
Bear’s happy tail
Daniel reflects on one of the many special happy tails he’s seen at Wollongong Pet Connection.
“We had a 12-year-old staffy named Bear, obviously the likelihood of that dog being rehomed is much, much less than a younger pup. We had him in care for 72 days and 45 of those were in foster care. It was only through this program that we were able to keep him as long as we did and he ended up finding a loving, permanent home. For me, they’re the heartwarming stories, when you think this dog's chances are so low then through the program and other efforts you get an outcome like that. They're always really good.”
Snugglebug Bear
Final words from Wollongong Pet Connection
To conclude, we asked Daniel what his key pieces of advice or learnings for other council teams who are thinking of starting their own foster program;
“Do the research, talk to other people who have done it, don't try to reinvent the wheel. There's not just Sydney Dogs and Cats Home, there's the New South Wales Animal Welfare League and other groups. Talk to other people who have done the hard work already and get what you can from them.”
Wollongong Pet Connection’s work to establish their foster program, in collaboration with Sydney Cats and Dogs Home, is a testament to the incredible outcomes that can be achieved for pets and the community when people work together.
“Sometimes it escapes us that the service has only been running for ten months when we look at all these things that we've achieved. I think it's a good demonstration to other councils that it really wasn’t a huge amount of internal resources given to this project, and it's only usually the effort that needs to be put in to achieve it. If you do want to have good outcomes in this space, it can be done.” Daniel reflects.
Are you from a council, and want to learn more about establishing a foster program? Check out the below AIAM webinar, hosted by Local Government foster program experts Felicity (Flick) Hillenaar and Brandon Cowan.
Foster programs for Local Government – why, how, risks and rewards
Are you from a council, and are looking for new ways for the pets in your care to be seen? PetRescue membership is completely free, and allows the adoptable pets in your care to be seen by thousands of potential adopters around Australia each day. To chat with us about joining please email us here.
Learn more about PetRescue’s Safe and Sound Pets program here.
Read about other councils doing awesome work for pets here.
Banner image: Athena, adopted thanks to Wollongong Pet Connection
