A foster child is supported by a whole network of people, who rarely share a system. Youth, foster and biological parents, caregivers, caseworkers, and the organizations behind them all play a part, but their information and the help available to them live in scattered places. A laptop a youth qualifies for, a tutoring program, a job pathway, a care package: each sits behind a different door, and the people who most need them often don’t know they exist. iFoster set out to put all of it in one place.

Doing that means serving very different users, a teenager on a phone, a caregiver coordinating support, an organization managing many cases, through experiences tailored to each, on top of one shared platform and the same trusted data.

The challenge

Could the entire foster community, youth, parents, caregivers, and organizations, work from one platform that connects them and surfaces the benefits and resources each is entitled to, delivered through mobile apps the people who need them will actually use?

The approach

We built iFoster as one platform with role-aware experiences, including two native mobile apps. Members get a single profile that follows them, the resources and benefits they qualify for are surfaced and claimable in-app, and organizations can coordinate support across the people in their care.

01
One platform, four roles
Youth, parents, caregivers, and organizations each get an experience built for them on top of a shared platform and a single source of member data.
02
Two mobile apps
Native mobile apps put the platform in the hands of the people who live on their phones, youth and caregivers, so support travels with them.
03
Benefits & resources, surfaced
The programs, products, and services a member qualifies for are surfaced and claimable in-app, closing the gap between help that exists and help that’s used.
04
Coordinated across the community
Organizations and caregivers can coordinate support around a youth, so the network around a child finally works from the same picture.

The resources existed. What was missing was one place where the youth and the people supporting them could actually find and use them.

The outcome

iFoster now runs on a single platform with two mobile apps connecting foster youth, families, caregivers, and organizations across the country. Members carry one profile, the benefits they qualify for are a tap away, and the network around each child works from shared, trusted information instead of scattered systems.

A child’s support network is wide. Now it finally shares one platform.

The platform extends to new benefits, partners, and regions as they join, each new resource or organization plugs into the same member profiles and apps, widening what the community can reach without rebuilding what already works.