Steve Lawrence, Director of “The Cat Rescuers”
July 6, 2019
Mary Chromek, Neonatal Kitten Foster
July 13, 2019
Today’s blog is the first installment of a new series: the Foster Program Profile Series, in which we ask foster program directors a series of questions about their program and then share their answers with you. This week, we’re talking to Siri Zwemke of Siamese Cat Rescue Center. We hope you get some new ideas and inspiration from these series If you know of a foster program we should talk with, please email Stacy.
Can you tell us a little bit about your organization and program?
Siamese Cat Rescue Center is an internet-based organization that has worked in over 20 states with (at one time) 80 foster homes to place 13,000 cats over the last 20 years. We started the program in 1998 and grew it over the next 20 years. We are now actually slowing down with our hands-on involvement and moving more towards support and assistance in different ways, due to both changes in the rescue and adoptive environments, as well as to the fact we have kept the same group of volunteers for many of our years and have all aged up together. We hope to take on more of an educational role as well as support and mentoring for other groups and individuals.
How many foster homes do you have for cats and kittens?
We currently have about 30; we have had as many as 80 at one time.
How many volunteers do you have involved with the program?
900+ for much of our 20 years. Volunteers could choose one or more areas to volunteer in: Intake Evaluation, Fostering, Interviewing, Crafting, Events or Transport.
What is your greatest challenge and greatest success with the program?
Our greatest challenge was the finding/recruiting of new volunteers. As the times changed, we found each generation seemed to have less time to get physically involved with volunteering, although they certainly understood the need for it. Because we aimed to have our volunteers long term, we hired and fired and trained volunteers just as if they were long-term employees. This served us well; by clearly setting the expectations, providing them the resources they needed to fulfill those expectations and holding them accountable for their volunteer positions, we were able to attract a very committed group of long-term volunteers.
Is there something that stands out or makes your program unique that you would like to share with others?
I would say it’s the training program. Fosters must apply and go through a one-month training program that involves phone interviews, online training, a home visit, negotiations with a local vet for a pricing agreement and so forth. We expect our fosters (just as we do our other volunteer positions) to play an active part in not only the care of each cat, but in the selection of each adopter and the mentoring of each situation post adoption. If a foster feels their cat is not a match to a certain family, we respect that, but ask that they explain their reasoning in such a way that the other two parties involved in choosing the home (the interviewer and the Director) understand and support the decision. Often times the three of us will hold back-and-forth discussions to determine the merits of a particular home and whether or not the cat is a match to the home. By making the fosters an integral part of the team (and we feel they have to be, as they are the only ones who know what the cat’s personality is like), they feel responsible for the decisions made with respect to the cat and therefore they are truly vested in the success of the placement.
Fosters get pre-approval for medical work for each foster cat. They work with a pre-approved vet, submit expense forms and they get reimbursed. Med work that is not pre-approved is covered by the foster themselves. Fosters are provided with a foster kit and are responsible for inventorying the kit and keeping it updated, requesting supplies as needed. The online placement system (known as MOMS) is designed so that everyone on the team can see what’s happeningwith respect to any particular adoption, so there’s no chance to “cheat the system.” This keeps everyone up front and honest.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how people can reach out to you in case they would like more information about your foster program?
I began the Siamese Cat Rescue Center in 1998, when I found myself with way too many Siamese cats that needed homes and realized I needed to do more than just adopt Siamese cats; I needed to figure out how to place them into good homes. We are incredibly paperwork-focused (online now), with documentation for every process you can imagine. The best email for questions about our program is vasrc@siameserescue.org or siri@siameserescue.org.
