Innovative technology connects families with foster children
MELBOURNE, FL – April 12, 2018 – Brevard Family Partnership, the lead child welfare agency in Brevard County, is participating in the pilot-program for Family-Match, an innovative adoption-matching technology designed to connect families with foster children.
The Selfless Love Foundation, a Florida-based nonprofit whose mission is to transform and enrich the lives of current and former foster youth, has partnered with Adoption-Share to launch Family-Match in Florida. A data-driven technology, Family-Match utilizes predictive models to assist case workers with placement decisions. With a compatibility assessment developed by the former lead researchers from eHarmony, this solution seeks to decrease time to adoption placement, match children to families where they will flourish, and improve case worker efficiency.
Currently, 800 to 900 children in Florida await adoption. Before Family-Match, adoptive parents often also faced long waits to be matched with available children.
Locally, Brevard Family Partnership works in conjunction with IMPOWER, who provides overlay adoption case management services to achieve permanency for children in Brevard County who have been permanently removed from their home and reside in foster, relative, or kinship care.
James Carlson, Interim CEO of Brevard Family Partnership said, “We are very excited to be partners with the Selfless Love Foundation. Their use of technology to match children and families reflects a step forward for our Family of Agencies, and the Brevard System of Care.”
With this program, families who are interested in adoption, are in adoption training, or who have an approved home study to foster or adopt, will be able to register for Family-Match. Participating families will get an unprecedented opportunity to be identified by child welfare workers across Florida looking to connect children with the most compatible homes. Interested families can register or learn more at selflesslovefoundation.org/family-match.
Family-Match was developed by Brunswick, GA-based Adoption-Share. More information about the organization is available at adoption-share.com.
About Brevard Family Partnership
Established in 2003 as a non-profit organization in response to the Legislative mandate to privatize foster care and related services in Florida (Section 409.986, Florida Statutes), Brevard Family Partnership is Brevard County’s lead child welfare agency. The agency was subsequently awarded the contract, through the Florida Department of Children and Families, to manage Brevard County’s child welfare system. Working in partnership with over 50 community organizations, its mission is to protect children, strengthen families and change lives through the prevention of child abuse and the operation and management of a comprehensive, integrated, community-based system of care for abused, abandoned and neglected children, and their families.
To learn additional information about providing a “forever home” for children in the foster care system, please call Brevard Family Partnership at 321-752-4650 or visit www.brevardfp.org.
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