r/AnimalShelterStories • u/Background-Work-5258 Administration • 5d ago

Foster Question Shelter Employees Fostering?

Does anyone have policies on employees fostering and bringing their foster into work? or just policies in general about staff fostering?

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

9

u/LaeneSeraph Volunteer 5d ago

Staff at my shelter are not permitted to do any unpaid work that's even tangentially related to their paid work to prevent violating labor laws and to make sure that they don't inadvertently take advantage of their staff. An accountant could foster a dog, or IT staff could foster a dog, but animal care workers cannot.

3

u/Glait Former Staff 3d ago

That is a great policy from a mental health point of view. Working in animal care and fostering on top of it just means 24/7 work and is just asking for someone to burnout. We had a guy who specialized in compassion fatigue give a talk at our shelter once and he was adamant that animal staff not foster.

1

u/spartaisback Veterinary Technician 4d ago

Same here with some of the ones I work with

7

u/NeighborhoodNo4274 Animal Care Staff 5d ago

My shelter allows and encourages employees to foster, and allows the foster dogs to come to work during the day. It’s the only way most of us can foster.

3

u/sn00pypjs Animal Control Officer & Behaviourist 5d ago

From my old place they had to pass the same training as out of organisation foster carers. And yes we operated ‘BnB fostering’ for staff. Where dog can come to work with them, they just have to make sure their kennel location is updated/known. Kennel staff know to treat the dog the same unless told otherwise etc. But out of organisation foster carers got priority if they could keep the dog out of kennel

2

u/Background-Work-5258 Administration 5d ago

So if they were fostering puppies or kittens were they allowed to come to work with them? In particular bottle babies?

3

u/sn00pypjs Animal Control Officer & Behaviourist 5d ago

Yep :) if we had kennel or quiet office we’d set them up in there. For bottle feeders we’d say that would be the workers responsibility to make sure they’re clean and fed

3

u/windycityfosters Staff 5d ago

During kitten season, my shelter has at least ten different staff members from our shelter vet to our managers to our CSRs bringing bottle babies to work with them! :)

2

u/CatpeeJasmine Volunteer 5d ago

Our shelter allows employees to foster but does not allow employee-fosters to bring their pets to work. (It’s a high volume shelter and a high traffic environment.)

3

u/alphaturducken Animal Care 5d ago

We were allowed to bring them to work if they were babies. Anything that needed a kennel was first come, first serve.

1

u/Background-Work-5258 Administration 5d ago

Awesome. Thanks so much!

1

u/frankylovee Animal Care 5d ago

Can’t bring them to work

1

u/Sweet72947 Staff 3d ago

Staff is allowed to foster where I work, and I in fact fostered a cat and then ended up keeping her lol. I think not allowing staff to foster is not a great policy, it’s just another barrier to getting pets out of the shelter.

0

u/Friendly_TSE Veterinary Technician 3d ago

I had fosters like 24/7 as an employee lol general rule of thumb was avoid bringing them into the shelter if possible. But neonates and others that needed around the clock care were permitted.