May is National Foster Care Month. This year’s theme, “Foster Care as a Support to Families, not a Substitute for Parents,” encompasses the critical role that foster parents and kinship caregivers play in supporting families as they work toward achieving and maintaining successful reunification.

As members of the child’s support team, you have the unique opportunity to partner with parents, family members, social workers, lawyers, and other providers as a way to support families as they work toward reunification. 

Visit the National Foster Care Month website to find important tools you can use to support biological families whose children may be placed in your home:

• Find and share resources that describe the importance of collaborating with birth parents and how this collaboration can help lead to successful reunification.
• See how others are meeting this challenge by accessing real-life stories of parents, youth, service providers, and caregivers involved in foster care.
• Help to spread the word on social media during National Foster Care Month and throughout the year to keep the needs of children in care in the minds of the public.

Visit and bookmark the National Foster Care Month website today at https://www.childwelfare.gov/fostercaremonth. Tell us what you think by taking our survey at http://sgiz.mobi/s3/6267b61c0b84 .

For more information, contact Child Welfare Information Gateway at NFCM@childwelfare.gov or 1.800.394.3366.