Q&A
Recruitment efforts for LGBTQ+ foster parents
0:37:31
·
73 sec
Steven Gordon explains ACS's efforts to recruit foster parents from the LGBTQ+ community and diversify the foster parent pool.
- In 2021, ACS worked with foster care agencies to plan better recruitment from the LGBTQ+ community
- ACS provided agencies with best practices for recruitment and outreach
- ACS supported agencies in hosting recruitment fairs via Zoom during the pandemic
- The recruitment efforts aimed to be inclusive and gender-neutral
- Council Member Stevens emphasizes the importance of recruiting from all communities, including the LGBTQ+ community
Jess Dannhauser
0:37:31
Absolutely.
0:37:32
We have.
0:37:32
We have here.
Althea V. Stevens
0:37:33
And what does that look like?
Steven Gordon
0:37:34
Yep.
0:37:35
Well, first, let's just be clear to because LGBTQ doesn't mean that you're appropriate to be a foster parent.
Althea V. Stevens
0:37:40
Oh, absolutely.
0:37:40
Oops.
0:37:41
Don't get me started.
0:37:42
That's not what I'm saying.
Steven Gordon
0:37:43
And so but also, we recognize that we want to diversify our foster parent pool.
0:37:49
In 2021, the Office of Okistrategies work with our permanency division.
0:37:54
We took a group of foster care agencies, plant made a work group to plan how they could better recruit from the LGBTQI plus community.
0:38:04
From that work group, we were able to provide those agencies with best practice for recruitment, taking outside the box outreach, equity checklist to ensure that their promotion is gender neutral and inclusive.
0:38:17
And we also were able to support them in hosting a couple of recruitment fairs via Zoom during peak pandemic times.
0:38:25
And it's to our knowledge that they're still practicing what we what we learned during that work.
0:38:31
Group.
Althea V. Stevens
0:38:32
Okay.
0:38:33
Yeah.
0:38:33
Because I also wanna make sure that we're being inclusive of when we're recruiting because people also wanna feel like they're part of things.
0:38:39
And so we we should make special efforts to make sure that we're recruiting in all communities because we just want good people.
Jess Dannhauser
0:38:45
Yeah.
Althea V. Stevens
0:38:45
And make sure that we're also recruiting in that community as well because they make great parents as well.
