Children’s Home and Aid is one of the largest statewide private providers of child welfare services in Illinois. The foster parent mentoring program was begun in March 2017, after a series of focus groups across the state revealed that foster parents were supporting one another informally but sometimes exchanging inaccurate information about state policy and procedure. The mentoring program was started to formalize such support and ensure that foster parents were receiving up-to-date information.
The program has trained 223 volunteer mentors and between 160 and 170 are currently active. Volunteers are current or former licensed foster parents, and most are kinship caregivers, as are their mentees. Prospective mentors must have at least two years of experience and must be referred to the program by agency licensing staff. Mentors receive seven hours of training over two days on topics such as licensing criteria and DCFS policy.
A newly-licensed foster parent is given the option to pair up with an appropriate mentor, who is then assigned to the foster parent for a minimum of six months and a maximum of 12 months. Mentors meet monthly with their mentees and maintain ongoing contact through emails, texts and phone calls. Mentors take on this role without compensation because they want to support other foster parents, be recognized as outstanding caregivers and to receive support themselves.
The goals of the mentoring program are to improve retention of foster parents, increase placement stability, improve partnerships among workers, birth parents and foster parents, increase opportunities for shared parenting and improve foster parent recruitment, among others. Mentors focus on preventing crises and have achieved positive results. Ninety-three percent of 14-day notices submitted by foster parents have been retracted or extended after a mentor became involved. According to Ashley Akerman, Statewide Foster Parent Support Coordinator for CH&A, such notices are almost never about the child; rather, they are about some service, training or support that is missing.2