Forsyth County Launches New Recruitment Campaign

Located just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the north central part of the state, Forsyth County is home to about 300,000 people (more than half of whom live in Winston-Salem), and has fewer than 100 children who are waiting for adoptive homes. More than a year ago, staff at the Forsyth County Department of Social Services (DSS) decided that a family recruitment campaign was needed, and this spring, they officially launched a carefully orchestrated media campaign to find homes for Forsyth's waiting children.

Forsyth County DSS is no stranger to finding homes for kids; it is one of 20 counties participating in the North Carolina Families for Kids (FFK) initiative. Started by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in the early 1990s, the FFK initiative aims to provide community-based family support, and through a coordinated assessment process and a single casework team, move children who cannot be reunited with their birth families to a permanent home within a year. The goal of the DSS recruitment campaign is similar: to involve the community in caring for its children, and quickly locate foster and adoptive resources.

Early Decisions

Preliminary planning more than a year ago revolved around funding and partnerships. Fortunately, state adoption incentive money (money that the state sets aside to reward counties for increased adoptions) and a matching grant from the Duke endowment for FFK II, enabled DSS to find a media partner.

Toward the end of last year, Dawn Perdue, the County's FFK coordinator, got the project off the ground by establishing a contract with the marketing firm Campaigns for Kids. Dawn credits Diane Delafield, founding director of Campaigns for Kids, for orchestrating DSS's recruitment effort.

Theme: Before DSS could create materials, they needed to come up with a theme. After deliberation, DSS and Campaigns for Kids selected "Will You Love the Children?" The goal was to create a non-threatening question to which many people could say "yes." All the materials also ask people to "Foster, Adopt, or Be a Friend." The third option is a way to draw in people who want to help children but are less comfortable with the first two options. Volunteer "friends" can bring separated siblings together for visits; take adoption information to their church or workplace; invite a foster child for a visit; sponsor a child's participation in camp, dance, or music lessons; host an FFK presentation; or make a gift contribution.

Children:
Many recruitment campaigns (and almost all of the Campaigns for Kids' projects) involve the children for whom the campaign hopes to find families. But Forsyth County decided to use only children who had already been adopted. Among the benefits of using adoptees instead of foster children: an easier photo release process, no loss of confidentiality for foster children, and materials that will not go out of date as featured foster children find a home or become unavailable for adoption.

Materials:
Because DSS staff wanted to broadcast their message to as many people in the community as possible, they opted to produce a diverse set of materials. Included in their arsenal is: a 17-minute video featuring images and voices of foster and adopted children, as well as foster and adoptive parents a 6" x 9" fold-out brochure (placed in grocery stores and other businesses)
8.5" x 5.5" church bulletin inserts a 10 5/8" x 17" poster (placed in willing businesses)an adoption-themed lapel pin (handed out to prospective adoptive parents, and worn by willing business employees) Last December, Campaigns for Kids began to interview families and children who had agreed to appear on the promotional materials. Next, DSS conducted a photo shoot using a Campaigns for Kids photographer. Then, using excerpts from audiotapes of the initial interviews with families and children, as well as photos from the photo shoot, Campaigns for Kids produced the video, and the other print materials. A 12-year-old foster child designed the lapel pin.

Unifying all the materials is the "Will You Love the Children?" theme, and the simple directives to adopt, foster, or be a friend. With the exception of the black and white poster, all of the printed material also share a color motif, as well as some of the same pictures and quotes. Each piece also includes a statement about children who need homes, dispels myths about who can foster and adopt, and lists numbers to call for more information.

Public Relations

Acampaign, of course, is not a campaign if no one knows about it. Early on, Campaigns for Kids sent out a series of public service announcements (PSAs) about the project, contacted churches about using the bulletin inserts, and established connections with radio and television media. Both radio and television representatives covered the photo shoot in January, and, thanks to National Public Radio, the story about Forsyth County's recruitment campaign reached all the way to Atlanta.

To formally launch the campaign, DSS organized a rally on the first Saturday in May. Campaigns for Kids issued more press releases, produced announcement posters, and secured radio and television spots (including a local morning show) to advertise the event. A local TV weatherman hosted the rally.

On the day of the event, more than 120 people came to watch the recruitment video, enjoy music sung by a children's choir, and listen to brief presentations by adopted children and their parents. Attendees were able to collect information about adoption and foster care, talk with DSS representatives, and see faces of children who still need homes.

Before the rally, DSS invited all the children who participated in the project (and their parents) to enjoy pizza and cake while previewing the video. During the Preview Night, the kids also worked on a banner that was used during the rally.

Results

Though it is much too early to measure the full effect of Forsyth County's recruitment campaign, DSS reports that their upcoming MAPP class is already full, and they have received more inquiry calls than before the campaign began. DSS is also still working to get the message out-by presenting the video at PTA meetings, churches, and other places where people gather; by asking members of the DSS governing board to help bring the campaign into the community; and by taking some of the teens from the video to speak with different audiences about adoption.

Lessons

Through campaigns for two private agencies and 14 counties (including Forsyth) in North Carolina, Diane Delafield has learned a lot about recruiting permanent homes. When agencies and workers seek her advice about finding homes for the children in their care, her recommendations include:

Listen carefully to the children. Find out what is important to them and what interests them. Then, find out who is important to them. Are there any adults in the child's life that the child is especially close to? Might one of them be an adoptive resource?

Get to know the children. If a recruiter is to effectively convey accurate information about a child to prospective parents, he or she must know the child. Though time is tight, recruiters should spend time interacting with the children, talking to teachers, and learning from foster parents. Description writing is also easier when you know a lot about your subject and can report what the people closest to the child say about him or her.

Involve children in the recruitment process. Uncertainty is hard to live with. Let children know what's going on; show them how their pictures, video, or audiotape will be used. Help each child to understand that you are working to find him or her a home, and even if one recruitment effort doesn't result in a new family for that child, it may enable other children to find permanent families. One day it will be that child's turn.

Share information with prospective parents in stages. In fairness to both children and prospective adopters, never publish a detailed account of a child's entry into care, placements, problems, and diagnoses for a general audience. Would-be parents need to know more about the child's current status and future potential than his or her past. Later, when a family is preparing to bring a child into their home, they should be completely informed about a child's history and any medical, emotional, or behavioral issues that may arise.

Ask audiences for specific support. People respond better to specific requests than general statements of need. Make every audience aware of the need, but then ask them to react to the need through specific actions, and give them enough information to follow through.

Focus on the local need. During recruitment presentations, recruiters often speak broadly about children who need homes. To get audience members to respond, focus on a specific child or sibling group who is waiting for a home in your community. Let people know the need is close to home.

Dedicate at least one full-time position to recruiting. Whether you have to fill the position by rotating existing staff, or using volunteers, make certain that someone takes responsibility for making one-on-one contacts, networking, and acting as a personal advocate for each child who waits for a permanent home.

Maintain good media relations. Know whom to contact at newspapers, as well as radio and television stations, and only provide as much information about waiting children as you care to see printed or broadcast.

Help others to know the children. The personal touch of showing pictures of and listening to audiotaped declarations from adoptees or children who are waiting for adoption is a cornerstone of Delafield's recruitment campaign strategy. Visual and auditory connections, she says, lead to heart connections. High-quality audio tapes of waiting children can work well for radio talk shows and PSAs. Pictures bring life to brochures and videos.

Delafield can also speak about recruiting from a personal perspective. Just this February she finalized the adoption of her teenage son-one of the waiting children she met during a 1998 recruitment campaign. When asked what inspired her to adopt, she says, "I fell in love with his heart during the interview." It is just this sort of "heart connection" that Forsyth County hopes to establish between waiting children and prospective parents through its ongoing campaign.