Dr. Sara Pizano, DVM, Team Shelter USA
June 29, 2019
Steve Lawrence, Director of “The Cat Rescuers”
July 6, 2019
Just about a week ago now, CCP partnered with the National Kitten Coalition (NKC) to hold the first-ever online kitten conference. We had twelve fantastic speakers with a lot of incredible information. There were many nuggets of cool information, but one thing that I found especially intriguing was the “Kitten College” model.
NKC founder Marnie Russ (interviewed on CCP Episode 8) shared in detail about the nursery program that she runs at the Animal Welfare League of Arlington. This program started in 2017 and has grown to assist over 1,000 kittens annually. With $25,000 in funding, they turned a storage closet into a short-term nursery for kittens and then grew their foster care program to over 300 foster homes. They provide foster homes with training, mentorship, and leadership.
But here is the really cool part: they have “Kitten College!” Folks who are new to foster care are considered “freshmen,” and they take the kittens that don’t have medical issues, but just need food, love, and play. As fosters become more experienced and get more training within the foster program, they advance in “grades.” 
“Sophomores” deal with kittens with URI or parasites, “juniors” handle bottle babies, and “seniors” deal with kittens with more serious issues. For the super-hard cases, the program has a few folks who have qualified for the “Dean’s list.” I found this model to be a wonderfully clear way for everyone to understand their roles.
But it gets even more interesting…
As the kittens get older and more independent, they don’t have to stay with the same foster home. Once a bottle baby is eating on its own, it could go to a sophomore foster home or even a freshman one for “finishing” before spay/neuter and adoption. This is a great solution from keeping your skilled foster homes from getting tied up. Basically, the kittens are moved along when the foster’s special skills are no longer needed. This is also very helpful in the summer when many people go on vacation. The system is used to doing a lot of shuffling around. I know that in my own experience, for years I talked about playing “foster care solitaire.” I felt that we always had this process of moving kittens around, but the idea of Kitten College is really tremendous and has me thinking…
For more details, check out the Animal Welfare League of Arlington’s Kitten College page.
