One of the lead child protection agencies in Australia, Barnardos Australia, has introduced a resource for children and youth in foster care: a digital “memory box” called MyStory.
The purpose of the digital memory box is to give children and youth in foster care a place to store their photos, report cards, drawings, letters, and other documents without fear of losing them while in foster care. In doing so, the agency hopes to provide a sense of stability for kids in foster care, especially those who might have multiple placements throughout their lives.
Learn more about the digital memory box.
Wish this could be started in the US, sounds amazing
Hi, we are looking at doing a similar initiative in Tasmania. My impression of this product is that it is actually a case management tool that also collects the “life story” of the child in care – which makes a lot of sense actually. It seems to tick all the right boxes for me – centred on the child, allows the child to only have to tell their story once, and allows the participation of the child or young person in decisions about them.
This happened to me. No bag no nothing. So I guess the digital memory box wasn’t there. But the nothing. I had a local grocery store bag with a tee shirt that was too small. Not because I was big but at 16, I had grown… No photos, no nothing…. I will never forget… My life could have been cronicled on a 2×2 post-it note from 3m. too bad they didn’t work for us kids….. anyway I LOVE THIS IDEA… I would like to spread it across AMERICA where I am from I will forward it to the Michigan’s Children’s defense fund.. as a start….
Thank you so much for this awesome idea!!!!!!!!
Oh and I already posted it on ACEsconnections in the US.
Tina, thanks so much for sharing your experience. It really emphasizes how important it is for caseworkers to focus on matters related to overall child well-being for children and youth in foster care in addition to safety and permanency. Being able to claim those parts of one’s life that generally get lost in the shuffle of multiple moves seems like it would add to one’s overall sense of permanency and stability.
Also, thanks for sharing on ACEsconnection!
What a great concept and innovation!
I agree Rob. I am curious about some of the aspects of the program that were not covered in more detail, such as how much space is allotted for each child in their cloud-based storage and what happens to all the information once a child is no longer in foster care (does the agency always retain the information, or does the agency check out of it once the child is out of care?). I dug a little deeper and saw that there is information on security measures to protect the children’s privacy, which is obviously very important. I would love to see this in action—too bad it’s in Australia!