My first thought on this is what commitment are we requiring from the foster homes? I know we don't want to have dilettantes taking the birds for a week and returning them because they got their lesson.
I think that all of us at this level are probably in agreement that, if we do start a publicity initiative based on a "Foster First" slogan, we can't and won't lower any of our standards and expectations for foster homes. So, the approval process will need to remain as thorough as it is now, though we should always strive to make it run more efficiently. We should continue to tell PFs that we need a long-term commitment from them to help the birds who need help. And we need all volunteers at all levels to understand this important part of our culture.
I suppose I should read our documents, but in the meantime, do we have a minimal time expectation for foster homes?
This is a separate topic, IMO, but we should consider revisiting how we document and communicate these expectations. I've heard from more than a few would-be foster parents who sounded like they were selecting options on a new car in telling me what kind of bird they wanted. I've heard people who want to use fostering as a kind of trading club without regard to what birds really need help or the negative effects of rehoming birds capriciously. Obviously, stuff happens and people have lifestyle changes that necessitate their giving up foster birds, but we need to be sure that PFs know up front that we need them to HELP and that we are doing this for the birds and not for them. I'm not sure this is mentioned enough during the foster approval process in at least some cases. Again, we need all volunteers to understand our culture as it relates to fostering, and to represent that culture appropriately. Otherwise, as Martha seems to be saying, a "Foster First" campaign could lead to an influx of dilettantes (or, as I would call them, yahoos) who want to take foster birds home to try them on for size. Of course, some people just won't "get it." They will want some sanitized version of bird care like the kind marketed to them by the pet industry, and they'll complain about Mickaboo being too picky for not giving it to them. IMO, the more mainstream we go with our PR, the higher a percentage of this mindset we will see, at least in the short term. That is not to say that we shouldn't do the PR, just that we need to stick to our guns. Our approval process has always had a fairly low success ratio in terms of approvals, but if it is making people think twice it is still having a positive effect. --VH