Nonprofit Resource Platform Overhaul

I worked with a local web development firm, GravityWorks, to build MARE.org in partnership with the Michigan Adoption Resource Exchange (MARE), MIDHHS, and the Judson Center.

I worked with MARE and Judson Center to gather requirements to develop a portal for foster care caseworkers around the state of Michigan to securely submit required casework documentation, and for approved foster care families to inquire to be considered for foster care and adoption home placement.

This website also serves as an information resource hub for professionals and families to learn about the process of adopting children from Michigan's foster care system.

Upon the launch of this platform, I traveled around the state to provide live, in-person training to all of the foster care caseworkers at every public and private agency in Michigan.

Prior to this launch, caseworkers were required to submit handwritten forms monthly to report the status of every youth in their caseload, via fax. That information was manually collated and entered into a database, which was then submitted to the Foster Care Advisory Board at MIDHHS. This tedious process took several days to complete each month and provided lots of room for data loss and human error.

Moving this process online saved time and labor for all stakeholders, increased compliance, and provided prospective adoptive families with more accurate information about Michigan's waiting youth. That website, launched in 2013, is still being used in its original form today.

Through this platform, MARE and MIDHHS have set an example for other states to streamline their cumbersome foster care adoption processes to achieve permanent placement for many of the 300,000 youth in foster care across the nation.