Recruiting foster parents for unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs) can be a daunting task, especially when it comes to finding homes for teenagers. While many potential foster parents express a desire to foster, common apprehensions about welcoming teens into their homes may deter them from pursuing licensure.
Hesitancy to foster teenagers is often due to a lack of experience with adolescents. This unfamiliarity can be intimidating for potential foster parents, making them feel unprepared for the challenges of parenting teens. Additionally, foster parents may worry that older URMs, who have faced significant trauma, could inadvertently harm or traumatize their younger children or family members. There’s also a common belief that teenagers are more difficult to care for than younger children, which can discourage potential foster parents who feel they may not have the time, energy, or resources to adequately support a teen. Beyond that, foster parents may worry about communicating with a teen who speaks a different language and wonder how they will bridge this gap and form connections. However, with the right guidance and resources, many foster parents have successfully opened their homes to teens, creating positive and transformative experiences for everyone involved.
Recruiting Foster Homes for Teen URMs: Turn Concerns into Confidence
1. Leverage Foster Parent Successes and Engage the Whole Household of Prospective Foster Parents
- Share success stories: Use testimonials from current foster parents who were initially hesitant but have had positive experiences with teens and use resources to navigate language barriers. This humanizes the process and offers real-life examples.
- Engage younger children: Invite younger children of potential foster parents to participate in the licensing process (as age-appropriate) to ease their fears. Give them space to ask questions and be part of the learning journey, ensuring they feel included and comfortable with the idea of welcoming a teen into the family.
Practical Examples:
- Organize a meet-and-greet or Q&A event: Host virtual or in-person events where foster parents share their experiences and answer questions from prospective parents.
- Create relatable content: On social media, highlight lived experience testimony from a foster parent who successfully welcomed teens to make the experience relatable and empowering for potential foster parents.
2. Focus on the Benefits and Independence of Teens
- Highlight valuable skills: Emphasize that teens bring valuable talents and independence. They often require less supervision, can contribute to household routines, and can serve as role models for younger children. Fostering teens may also allow families more flexibility with errands or travel, depending on state rules.
- Share enriching experiences: Promote stories of teens enriching foster families by contributing to daily life and sharing cultural experiences like cooking meals or celebrating holidays.
Practical Examples:
- Host cultural celebrations: Organize events featuring teens and their backgrounds. This could include a fashion show where teens dress in traditional clothing, music, dancing, and food to highlight the diversity of the youth. Such an event showcases teens in a positive light, sharing their rich cultures.
- Nurture a culturally rich household: Guide potential foster parents with various ideas on how families can make cultural exchange part of daily life. For example, English-speaking homes may label items like “plates” and “laundry” in both English and the teen’s native language. This helps the teen learn English while the family also prioritizes language learning. Some may even turn it into a fun competition, creating matching games with labels. Simple practices like these enrich family life and celebrate the unique cultural contributions each teen brings to the home.
3. Offer Targeted Training and Support
- Address myths and provide education: Dismantle misconceptions about refugees and refugee foster care that are often created by inaccurate media portrayals and a lack of education on certain topics. Offer trainings that provide accurate information on common concerns such as trauma, mental health, substance use, gender-based violence, and human trafficking.
- Maintain consistent support: Establish a strong support system that includes regular check-ins, access to resources, and open lines of communication to help foster parents feel supported throughout their process.
Practical Examples:
- Develop informative materials: Create a myth-vs.-fact marketing flyer or social media post.
- Build a foster parent network: Offer support and mentor groups and online forums, or create groups in free messaging apps for foster parents to share experiences, ask questions, and receive advice, reinforcing that they aren’t alone in this journey.
4. Collaborate with the Broader Community
- Cultivate relationships: Build connections with community organizations, schools, and local groups to normalize the idea of fostering teens.
- Showcase talents: Feature teen success stories through marketing videos, or showcase artwork or creative expressions in coffee shops, bookstores, or community events to highlight their contributions and skills.
Practical Examples:
- Encourage community integration: Apply to have a table at a local market or festival and have teens sell handmade items like candles or bracelets they’ve created during support groups or recreational activities. Involve teens in community open mic nights to read poetry or sing. This community involvement can build a support system around teens, increasing visibility and reducing misconceptions.
- Participate in local activities: Involve teens in local sports leagues, clubs, or organizations to help build connections with community members, which can open doors to new foster parent recruits.
5. Balance Realism with Empowerment
- Promote introspection: Encourage potential foster parents to revisit their own teenage experiences and identify the support they wished they had. Empower them to recognize that they can offer similar guidance and understanding to a teen, emphasizing the significant positive impact foster parents can have on the lives of teen URMs.
- Set realistic expectations: Provide a balanced view of the challenges of fostering teens while sharing stories of personal growth and family bonding.
Practical Examples:
- Facilitate a reflection activity: During an information session, encourage potential foster parents to reflect on the key supports they had as teens—such as encouragement from caregivers, mentors, or community programs—and how these helped them navigate challenges and achieve milestones. This can help foster parents understand that, while their experiences may differ from those of a teen URM, they can provide similar forms of support, guiding the teen through their own unique journey.
- Provide gradual involvement options: Offer alternatives for those hesitant to foster immediately, such as respite care, mentorship, or volunteer opportunities. This allows them to interact with teens in a less intense capacity and gradually build confidence in their ability to foster long term.
Future Ready – Welcoming Teens into Foster Homes
While recruiting foster parents for teen URMs can be challenging, implementing the right approaches can help navigate and overcome any obstacles. Acknowledge and validate potential foster parents’ fears. Use approaches that are consistent and adaptable to each individual, with ongoing check-ins, invitations to events, and open discussions about evolving concerns. Be sure to remember those who might need more time to feel comfortable with the process of welcoming teens. Keep inviting them to events, address any ongoing fears, and provide continuous support.
These strategies apply to licensed foster parents as well. It’s likely you have homes that are already licensed who are hesitant to accept placement opportunities due to their own fears about fostering teens. But by addressing common concerns, showcasing positive stories, and engaging the community, you can instill confidence in both potential and licensed foster parents to welcome teen URMs into their homes.
