https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-uber-of-foster-care-593866cd
Technology often gets bad-mouthed for ruining our youth or potentially causing the extinction of humanity. But more often than not, it’s a force for good. This is one of those stories.
Every year in the U.S., seven million children are referred to child protective services. On any given day close to 400,000 children are in the foster system. Roughly 80% of children in foster care have mental-health issues vs. 18% to 22% for other children. This is a problem worth solving.
The origin story: Healthcare executive Adrien Lewis and his wife began fostering children in 2011 and spent two years trying to get churches in the Kansas City area to recruit foster parents—no easy task. Then, “out of nowhere,” Mr. Lewis says, “I get a vision for CarePortal, to leverage technology to connect. In crisis, those touched by the child-welfare system could connect with churches and people who care in proximity that would want to help if they knew. What would happen if you could expose people to the reality that a bed or crib or car seat, or paying a bill, things that were small, like 6-inch barriers, would actually make a difference to keep kids out of foster care and reunify biological families?” Heck of a vision.
So “with shoestring and duct tape, we pulled together different software platforms and kind of jimmied them together. A pilot of CarePortal hit the market in Austin, Texas, in late 2014. People went nuts over it. The very first request was for a family with a bedbug problem who was trying to adopt a cousin who had been in foster care. Supplies and volunteers solved their bedding problem.”
Here are some stats: 50% of children in the foster system are concentrated in 5% of counties in 31 states. That’s 160 counties and 96 markets. CarePortal is now in 64 markets and growing and says it has helped more than 250,000 children avoid foster care.
CarePortal CEO Joe Knittig told me that “Uber is to ride-sharing what CarePortal is to care sharing—community-based care sharing.”
