Spread the Word
Be a Key Messenger
CHAMPS is stronger when more individuals and organizations join in the effort. Educating the public and policy makers alike is critical to building the public will necessary to spur policy improvements. These messages need messengers!
- Children do best in and need families. Foster parents are key to helping children heal, grow and thrive.
- Currently, many good foster parents quit due to antiquated policies. This is costly and bad for kids.
- There are solutions, including no- or low-cost solutions. The CHAMPS policy playbook highlights a variety of solutions that can work in your community.
- By taking action, we can make a difference for kids. Improving policies and programs will lead to more children being safe and healthy, experiencing greater academic success, staying connected to their siblings, having more stable lives, and leaving foster care for a permanent family through safe reunification with their birth families, placements with relatives or through adoption.
The resources on this page can be shared with policy makers, such as elected officials, child welfare agency leaders, professional colleagues, civic leaders and others. Resources are organized by category: (1) print & share: printable materials and handouts for use at meetings or conferences as well as social media shareables: (2) tweets you can use: sample tweets and posts for communicating on social media; (3) ready-to-use newsletter text, and (4) material for speaking about CHAMPS, such at conferences and meetings.
We invite you to contact us to let us know about your outreach efforts.
Together we can champion foster parents policy efforts and help ensure more children in foster care have bright futures!
Join In Foster Family Appreciation
Foster Family Story Bank
Visit this new section of our website featuring amazing foster families. Their stories are shareable through Facebook and Twitter. Sharing these stories is part of a national effort to raise awareness about the many wonderful families that help children in foster care heal and thrive. We are excited to feature these families and invite anyone interested to submit their story for inclusion in the foster family story bank. It only takes a few minutes to complete the story form (online form is here).
Online social media toolkit
May is National Foster Care Month, a time to recognize and thank the many people who support the well-being of children in foster care. May 31 is National Foster Family Appreciation Day which is an opportunity to say #ThanksFosterFamilies. CHAMPS has created a new online social media toolkit to help individuals and organizations say words of thanks to amazing foster families. The toolkit provides graphics, sample messages for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, a Facebook frame, directory of Twitter handles and more.
Print and Share
Printables
Pledge Flyer
How to Get Involved with CHAMPS
CHAMPS postcard
“About CHAMPS“ – a one-page overview of the campaign
Social Media Sharables
Tweets You Can Use
Foster parents are game-changers for kids! Agree? Take the #FosteringCHAMPS pledge and show you support better outcomes for children in #fostercare: http://fosteringchamps.org/the-champs-pledge/
Loving, supportive families – birth, kin, foster or adoptive – are critical to the healthy development of all children. Agree? Take the #FosteringCHAMPS pledge: http://fosteringchamps.org/the-champs-pledge/
Children need families, and quality foster parenting is key to helping children heal, grow and flourish. Join in taking the #FosteringCHAMPS pledge: http://fosteringchamps.org/the-champs-pledge/
Quality foster parenting helps children thrive and succeed in school, relationships and in life. Agree? Take the #FosteringCHAMPS pledge: http://fosteringchamps.org/the-champs-pledge/
Do you think children in foster care deserve the highest quality foster parenting? Take the #FosteringCHAMPS pledge: http://fosteringchamps.org/the-champs-pledge/
Learn more about a new campaign to ensure bright futures for kids in #fostercare. Take the #FosteringCHAMPS pledge: http://fosteringchamps.org/the-champs-pledge/
Want to help children in #fostercare? Take the #FosteringCHAMPS pledge to ensure quality foster parenting http://fosteringchamps.org/the-champs-pledge/
DYK? Quality foster parenting is key to helping children heal, grow and thrive. Sign the #FosteringCHAMPS pledge: http://fosteringchamps.org/the-champs-pledge/
By supporting foster parents, we achieve better outcomes for children in #fostercare. Take the #FosteringCHAMPS pledge: http://fosteringchamps.org/the-champs-pledge/
CHAMPS is mobilizing support across the country to support foster parents. Stay connected to the movement. Like us on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/FosteringCHAMPS/
For Your Organizational Newsletter
CHAMPS is a new campaign to ensure bright futures for kids in foster care by promoting the highest quality parenting. CHAMPS — which stands for Children Need Amazing Parents – brings together research, policy solutions and a network of dedicated advocates with the goal of spurring policy change in 25 states over 5 years.
The CHAMPS campaign builds on the vast body of research that shows loving, supportive families – whether birth, kin, foster or adoptive – are critical to the healthy development of all children. Quality foster parenting can mean better outcomes for children in foster care. It can help children heal from trauma, keep siblings together, increase stability and ensure that children achieve permanency through reunification with birth families, placement with relatives, or through adoption.
CHAMPS aims to spur policy changes in 20-25 states over 5 years in support of foster parents. Georgia and New York are the first two states to pick up the challenge. Specifically, CHAMPS calls on policy makers to create a new partnership between foster parents and the public agencies responsible for foster care programs. A new partnership will improve the health and well-being of children and families across the country.
We invite you to get involved in CHAMPS. You can learn more about CHAMPS by visiting the campaign’s website at www.fosteringCHAMPS.org. If you agree that foster parents are game changers for kids, “like” CHAMPS Facebook and sign the CHAMPS pledge at http://bit.ly/2uBQQ4E.
Give a Presentation about CHAMPS
One way you can help CHAMPS is by sharing information about the campaign with interested stakeholders, such as at coalition meetings or with others at your own organization. CHAMPS provides a variety of resources that you can use to make short presentations. These include:
- A two-minute video about CHAMPS
- A ready-to-use PowerPoint slide deck that describes the campaign
- A one page overview that can be a handout
Other resources you may be interested in sharing include:
- Research highlights that support the need to improve foster parenting policies
- A blog post published by the Brookings Institution, along with the co-chairs of CHAMPS, highlighting how the nation’s opiod crisis creates an urgent need for policy solutions that support quality foster parenting.
Sign the Pledge
Sign the pledge to show your support for today’s amazing foster parents and the importance of quality foster parenting.
Get Involved
We invite you to get involved in CHAMPS and be part of building bright futures for kids in foster care.