FYEF: CGI builds new portal for foster youth

The Foster Youth Education Fund (FYEF) is a non-profit organization created to generate and disburse education grants to emancipating foster youth in the four county Sacramento regions.  FYEF believes that all children deserve to dream big and should have the opportunity to strive for those dreams through higher education.

The Challenge
Foster care youth are frequently emancipated with little more than paper copies of essential personal information, making it challenging to apply for a job, complete a college application, or receive medical care.  FYEF needed a solution that would alleviate the difficulties emancipated foster youth have maintaining their personal information.

How CGI Helped
CGI and FYEF developed a unique solution to ease the transition from foster care to self-sufficiency.  The application, named My Safe Drawer is an innovative data repository solution developed by CGI to assist foster youths by address the challenges of this critical transition.  CGI assembled a CGI pro bono team to undertake the design and development of My Safe Drawer.  The team interviewed significant stakeholders in order to assess requirements of this pilot project.  My Safe Drawer houses youths’ health and education information in an intuitive, user-friendly application.

The Results
After 6 months of development, My Safe Drawer was successfully implemented in Santa Clara County, CA.  My Safe Drawer meets the unique needs of the mobile youth population by addressing an array of challenges including:

  • Improved and intuitive access to personal information
  • Improved/facilitated management of youth transition from foster care to self-sufficiency

Valuable component of youth participation in federal National Youth Transition Database mandate

The bottom line: The quality of CGI’s My Safe Drawer application and dedication of its pro bono team serve as a testimony to the computer service provider’s commitment to the emancipating foster youths in Sacramento, which has drawn the attention of several California counties and states now seeking to implement the portal for their constituents who are transitioning out of foster care.

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