Family Support Services currently uses the Binti licensing module to improve the process for those who seek to become foster parents for children in need of a stable and safe home.

See the story below by Saundra Weathers and watch it on Spectrum News here.

TAMPA, Fla. — When it comes to getting involved with the child welfare system and foster care, there’s often a lot of paperwork, training and monitoring involved.

After hearing first hand from families complaining about the process, a tech company created an app to streamline it.

The goal is to remove at least one obstacle for children in the child welfare system in need of a home.

Child welfare agencies across the state are now using software that they’re hoping will remove some barriers getting in the way of people becoming foster parents.

Felicia Curcuru is the CEO of the software company, Binti. She said she was motivated to create the app after seeing first hand how much paperwork was involved. When she looked deeper, she realized there wasn’t a one-stop shop for all the requirements for becoming a foster parent.

She says the app was built to improve outcomes for children and child welfare.

“Our first product called licensing, it’s sort of like Turbo Tax to be a foster adoptive family. Families apply online and get through the whole process and they can even do it on their mobile phone,” Curcuru said.

It’s also used by social workers as a tool to speed up a traditionally slow process. Curcuru said the software was built to improve outcomes for children and child welfare.

“So, instead of a specialist in the past, a specialist would go out to the home, with a packet of about 60 pages or something that they would have to go through and have them fill out. Where as now, with Binti, they can do it online and at their own pace,” Family Support Services Kinship Licensing Supervisor Timothy Cooke said.

Foster parents say it makes the process easier for them.

“We re-license every year, they did start using Binti about a year or two ago, and when we were able to start using Binti for our re-licensing, it’s so much easier,” said foster parent Christina Lux. “Since we were already licensed through Florida, we went ahead and decided that we would help Florida out with their foster children as well and be emergency placement. And emergency placement is kind of when they first pull the children from a home, that’s that first face in the foster care for the kids.”

Binti software officials say they work with agencies in different cities all over the country. Here in Florida, they’re working with the entire state. So, the program is available and being used by every agency in the state.

It’s a tool creators of the app and local child welfare agencies are hoping will inspire more people to become foster parents like Lux and lead to more children finding their forever families.

Interested in learning more about becoming a foster parent? Contact: recruitment@fsssuncoast.org