A Partnership to Manage the 26 Agencies of NYC's Foster Care Programs
Care4 Software, the premier software platform for evidenced-based treatment practices has partnered with Fair Futures, an evidence-based treatment model for a coalition of child welfare agencies, non-profits, foundations, advocates, and young adults. Fair Futures successfully launched the model citywide at all 26 foster care agencies in December 2019.
The partnership ensures that Fair Futures can manage cases within each of the 26 agencies much more efficiently by providing foster youth access to long-term coaching and robust academic, career development, and independent living support.
This strategy has proven to increase graduation rates and post-secondary enrollment to help youth find a pathway to becoming successful adults. With Care4, mentors at Fair Futures can optimize their approach by focusing on options that make the most sense based on where youth are in their journey, from housing options to financial aid for postsecondary education.
How Care4 Helps
Care4 Software offers a full-featured platform that eliminates risky development cycles and virtually eliminates redundant clerical work that can compound clinical treatment times. Rather than spending a year in development to find out the viability of a system, Care4 allows Fair Futures to immediately begin on a proven technology platform.
"With Care4, we've not only become more efficient as an agency, but we also now have visibility into case files we simply didn't have before. To be able to see the history, the progress, and the direction of our students all in one place within the Care4 platform is powerful."
Led by Ericka Francois and the Fair Futures Youth Advisory Board she directs, the campaign to implement Care4 has also eased the burden of compliance for Fair Futures with the Administration of Child Services (ACS) by standardizing funding reports across all 26 agencies, a practice normally done manually.
"We are thrilled to be able to help Fair Futures in their mission to provide meaningful mentorships with the foster youth of New York City," says Julian King, CEO of Care4 Software. "Our commitment to Fair Futures goes beyond simply providing a software solution. Our aim is to empower these agencies to guide and monitor the progress of these youth without Fair Futures staff having to spend time on repetitive data entry tasks. More importantly, Fair Futures now has the ability to guide their teams step-by-step through the model's process to help ensure successful outcomes."
Care4 In Action
The Office of Youth Development at HeartShare St. Vincent's Services empowers a growing team of directors and coaches to guide students through various stages of academic development through "ADP-The American Dream Program".
With Care4 Software in place, HeartShare is now able to easily track students through the program's predefined steps as they move toward their educational goals. "Before we began using the Care4 platform, our system was in chaos, with tracking data dispersed across a multitude of spreadsheets," says Dawnasia Freeman, Director of Education at HeartShare's Office of Youth Development.
"With Care4," she adds "we've not only become more efficient as an agency, but we also now have visibility into case files we simply didn't have before. To be able to see the history, the progress, and the direction of our students all in one place within the Care4 platform is powerful. We're able to communicate between departments in ways that simply weren't possible before. Now we have a wealth of meaningful data at our fingertips."
Photo by Ben Duchac on Unsplash