If you are interested in volunteering, there are many opportunities to support agencies in your community.
Respite Care Provider
Respite care gives foster, adoptive, and kinship parents and children the chance to have short, regular periods of time apart in which they can rest and recharge. While respite care is designed primarily to provide rest and relief for the primary caregivers, the child in respite care also benefits.
If you are considering fostering, providing respite foster care may be a way to test the waters. Respite care allows you to choose when you’re available to take in children so the schedule can be very flexible.
Approved Babysitters can help foster parents manage the extra time needed to care for the additional children they have made part of their lives. If you can give your time on occasion to babysit or run an errand or even provide short-term full-time caregiving to provide respite care it would be of great help to these families. Contact a Child Placing Agency in your county to begin the process to become an approved babysitter or respite provider.
Foster Family Supporter
If you are or have been a successful foster parent and can encourage new foster families and share your past experiences with them, an understanding listener can be of great comfort. Please consider joining your local foster parent association to connect with other foster parents in your area.
Fundraise or donate supplies to foster care organizations. Many children enter foster care with very little to call their own. Everything from diapers, back-to-school supplies, toys, and suitcases are needed by organizations that support foster children. Whatever you can do will go a long way. Donate time, money, or supplies directly to an organization in your area.
Become a CASA Volunteer
Between new foster parents, lawyers, judges and Child Protective Service agents, a child needs one constant person, face and trusted friend to turn to. This trusted friend can be you, a CASA volunteer. CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate®.
CASAs are community volunteers who are screened and highly trained and then appointed by judges to represent and advocate for a child’s best interests in the child protection system. Each CASA volunteer is assigned to help one child or set of siblings, at-a-time, so they can focus on giving that child or sibling group the individualized advocacy and attention that they need. CASA is a nationwide association of volunteer advocates for children.
Locate a Volunteer Opportunity