Why Foster Families Struggle to Find Babysitters—and How We Can Help
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Imagine a typical day in the life of a busy foster family. Each week, the parents balance doctors’ appointments, school events, and last-minute meetings, all while providing the love and care their kids need to thrive.
Yet, unlike most families, they can’t simply call on anyone in their network to help when things get overwhelming.
That’s because foster parents, by Texas law, can only use babysitters who are specially trained and certified to care for children in foster care.
While this requirement helps ensure that children receive safe, qualified care, it also creates a significant challenge—finding certified babysitters on short notice isn’t easy, and unfortunately, there aren’t enough of them to meet the demand.
Our team here at The Riverside Project saw this problem and knew we had to be part of the solution. Our goal? To make the certification process as easy as possible for babysitters and caseworkers so foster families can get the reliable support they need.
That’s why we started the Babysitting Collaborative—a streamlined, accessible training program that simplifies the process of becoming a certified foster care babysitter.
If you want to support our mission, explore becoming a foster care babysitter yourself, or learn more about how this requirement affects foster families, keep reading.
Why Certified Foster Care Babysitters are Crucial
For most parents, childcare is often a team effort—with many friends and family members they can rely on for support.
Need to pick up one child from school after they’ve gotten sick? A trusted neighbor can step in to watch the others.
Going on a work trip? Grandma, an aunt, or a close family friend might host a fun weekend sleepover.
Foster parents, however, don’t have this flexibility.
Since children in the Texas foster care system must always be supervised by a certified babysitter, every routine outing—things biological families might not think twice about—becomes a logistical challenge that requires advanced coordination. Foster parents must plan carefully every time they need to secure qualified care for trips like:
- Date nights
- Running errands
- Doctor/dentist appointments
- Extended trips (for work or vacation)
On top of the usual childcare needs most parents encounter, foster parents have additional obligations that require them to enlist the help of babysitters, including:
- Court hearings related to the child’s case
- Caseworker or legal meetings that require privacy
- Essential self-care time to prevent burnout and continue providing a stable home
Additionally, when foster parents are caring for multiple children, they often need to take one child to visitations, counseling appointments, or specialized therapy, while ensuring the others receive proper care at home.
Research shows that 30% to 50% of foster parents quit within their first year. We believe that, if more foster parents had support wrapped around them, they wouldn’t get burned out so quickly. For them, babysitting help isn’t just a practical resource—it’s a lifeline. It brings family stability, security, and a sense of belonging.
What is the Babysitting Collaborative?
The typical certification process to become a foster care babysitter can be confusing, time-consuming, and costly. These obstacles can discourage well-meaning people who want to step up and support foster families.
That’s why we created our Babysitter Certification Training—a program that covers all the basic instruction and documentation you need to start babysitting children in the foster care system.
We understand that those within the foster care community already deal with an overwhelming amount of regulations and documentation. That’s why our mission with this initiative is to not only simplify the certification process for foster parents and babysitters, but also to lighten the workload for agency workers.
Typically, getting a babysitter approved involves a lot of back-and-forth, constant follow-ups, and piles of paperwork for agency workers. We step in to handle as much of that as possible, making sure these connections are forged without adding to caseworkers’ already full plates.
What Does it Take to Get Certified?
Our streamlined, multi-agency certification course covers the basic training and documentation required to babysit kids in foster care (except for fingerprinting). Topics include:
- Medication
- Transportation
- Trauma-informed care
- CPR, First Aid, & AED
All documentation and training modules are completed through a secure online portal, aside from CPR, First Aid, & AED training, which is done in-person. All background checks and fingerprints are processed by the certifying agency upon completion of the training.
This training is designed for:
- People (16 and older) desiring to support foster & adopt families
- Current foster & adopt families
- Prospective foster & adopt families
- Kinship families
Could Your Place Along the River Involve Babysitting?
You don’t have to become a foster parent to care.
Our philosophy is that every person in our community has their own unique role along The River. Our city needs helping hands both upstream and downstream to support as many vulnerable children and families as possible. Babysitters are one of the most essential roles along The River.
We’re proud to have trained close to 1000 babysitters since we started this initiative back in 2018. Both foster families and babysitters who have gone through our training have shared kind words about what this mission means to them:
“I highly recommend the training program for babysitters with The Riverside Project! It was so easy, I was able to do it at my own pace, in the comfort of my own home, and the trainings were very applicable to caring for foster children safely. It made getting babysitting certified a breeze, which will encourage even more people to be able to do it!” – Leah Elder
“The Babysitting Collaborative has been an incredible blessing. It’s a gift to know that when we have appointments or work commitments, there’s a community of trained people ready to help.” – Mrs. Scott (Foster Parent)
Help Us Bring More Support Families Need
Making qualified babysitting assistance available and easily accessible is one of the most impactful ways we can help foster parents here in Houston.
As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. Would you change a family’s life by becoming a meaningful member of their village, or by helping us support the babysitters who want to fulfill this role?
Taking a small amount of time from your schedule to become a certified foster care babysitter, donating to support our Babysitting Collaborative, or sharing our mission with your family and friends are all wonderful ways to make a difference.
Please consider supporting us today at riversideproject.org/give. Your generosity helps us ensure that foster families can breathe easier—knowing they have a network of trained, caring people ready to help.
