What is this website?

Here is the problem: every year in Los Angeles County, about 2000 foster kids "age out" of the foster care system. They are left with no guidance, little training and few resources. Los Angeles has the largest population of foster kids in the nation.

Fewer than 2 percent of foster kids who age out graduate from college. The suicide and incarceration rate among this group is markedly higher than the general population. Forty percent of persons living in homeless shelters are former foster children.

This is a solveable problem. If we can help just a fraction of these people, we can make a huge impact.

FosterSquared uses our social connection platform to allow young adults who have aged out of foster care to seek guidance and resources from people in the Greater Los Angeles community. Many of these young people are bright and motivated but are left in dire straits often due to circumstances far beyond their control.

Mentors are able to contribute advice, resources and guidance to help these young adults build life skills, advance their education, achieve their career goals and become economically self-sufficient.

Unlike traditional mentorship approaches, there is not necessarily a one-to-one relationship (although one can develop should the participants choose), but instead a "crowd" of mentors can all chip offer advice and expertise. This means that for the mentors, their level of commitment is flexible.

The system is built to leverage public data.

The system is built to leverage publicly-available data to provide supplemental resources for education, health, legal issues, transportation or any other topic of relevance to our clients. These supplemental resources are shown on users' dashboard pages and can be either suggested by other users or provided algorithmically.