Episode 91 – Innovating Child Welfare Systems with Felicia Curcuru

• Binti serves over 550 agencies in 36 states.
• The platform improves family approval rates by 30% and reduces processing time by 18%.
• Felicia’s motivation stemmed from her sister’s difficult adoption experience.
• Binti automates administrative tasks for social workers, allowing them to focus on family engagement.
• AI is used to streamline processes without making decisions about families. Agencies using Binti are 18% faster on average.
• Binti allows for paper applications to accommodate non-tech-savvy families.
• The goal is to reduce the number of children in care while increasing family placements.
• Binti’s software aims to streamline processes for social workers and improve outcomes for children.
• Unconditional love and support are essential for children in foster care.

 

TRANSCRIPT:

Brian (00:00.16)
I to make sure I pronounce your last name correctly. It’s okay. It’s Kirkuru.

Felicia (00:08.806)
It’s close. we, we, I’m like first generation Italian, so we like, like, change it over time. We, say, ca cura.

Brian (00:10.372)
Who says it right?

Brian (00:18.514)
I wasn’t even close. Kakura. I’m glad I asked. All right. Here we go. Hello and welcome to the Foster Friendly podcast. I’m your host, Brian Mavis with my co-host Courtney Williams. Courtney, we’ve got a great guest today, Felicia Kakura, who she is the CEO and co-founder of Binti. Sorry, CEO and co-founder of Binti.

Felicia (00:21.032)
Yeah, yeah.

Brian (00:46.892)
And it’s something that I’ve heard about for years and I’m excited to finally meet Felicia and hear more about this amazing technology that she helped create. Felicia, welcome to Foster Friendly Podcast.

Felicia (01:03.38)
Thank you so much for having me.

Brian (01:05.75)
And then tell us a little bit just about before we go into what you do, just the scope of what you have right now. How many places are using Benty?

Felicia (01:19.518)
Yeah, so agencies using us, have over 550 agencies in 36 states and overall agencies using Binti serve about 49 % of child welfare in the US that use at least one of our products.

Brian (01:33.676)
Okay, so that one the reasons I wanted to just get that right out there right away is that so our listeners know that this is relevant, likely relevant to them that probably their county is using it or a neighboring one. So this has extreme relevance to all our listeners.

Courtney Williams (01:55.572)
Yeah, and this work is also very deeply and personal to you. What are your personal connections and how did Binti come to be through that and just through your experiences?

Felicia (02:06.302)
Yeah, good question. So my sister adopted two children and it was just a really difficult, stressful, complicated process to get licensed as a caregiver. And I’ve also been a CASA for many years and I saw that we had a shortage of families and, you know, children are sometimes sleeping in offices or hotels or in group homes. And it just didn’t make sense to me that it would be so hard to get through the licensing process when we have the shortage of families. So that was that was my original motivation for getting involved.

Brian (02:16.036)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (02:36.236)
And I started researching and I know that you know these statistics, but there’s about 400,000 children in foster care and 50 % will be homeless at some point in their life and 50 % will have experience with the criminal justice system by the time they’re 17. so, yeah, my original goal was I just wanna help approve more families more quickly to be foster and adoptive families. The scope has expanded a lot since then, but that was my original kind of inspiration for starting it.

Brian (03:04.804)
And it was because your sister, her experience was just, you thought this is ridiculous. There’s gotta be a better way. Okay. And then I’m a little bit curious too. then, uh, did you become a casa because your sister was adopting or did you prior or why’d you become a casa?

Felicia (03:09.994)
Yeah, basically.

Felicia (03:21.802)
Yeah, I did become a CASA after the adoption. My sister is 15 years older than me, so she went through the process when I was kind of high school going into college. So it was always in the back of my mind, and then in my mid-20s I became a CASA as well.

Brian (03:35.48)
Okay, all right. just again, underlining that this was not just like a intellectual problem to solve, but something that was personal to you. So before we dive in deeper, just give us the overview. What is Binti and how does it work?

Felicia (03:57.118)
Yeah, definitely. So the first product that we started with is our licensing product, which is our most widespread one. And you can sort of think about it like TurboTax to be a foster or adoptive family. So families can apply online on their phone. They can fill out all the paperwork, e-sign everything, upload documents. And that’s replacing paper. Before Binti launches in agencies, typically we’re replacing that they’re completing it on a huge deck of paperwork. So it’s just a lot easier for families.

Brian (04:04.269)
Okay.

Brian (04:23.556)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (04:27.08)
And then on the social worker side, typically what we’re replacing is a 70 column Excel spreadsheet where social workers are tracking families in a huge spreadsheet and all the steps that they need to complete to get licensed and relicensed. And essentially what we’ve built is an easy to use dashboard where they can log in and they can see which families they’re working with, what’s done, what’s not done.

They can track background checks. They can go to the home and inspect the home for safety on their cell phone, kind of checking things off their list. And then every year we’ll remind them to complete certain steps to recertify the family. And then we also generate reports for supervisors and administrators to better manage their team. So that product is the most widespread. That’s in 49 % of the country.

It’s had measurable results. On average, agencies approved 30 % more families 18 % faster after working with us. And we saved 20 to 40 % of their time. So that’s our first product. I can explain our other ones, but I’ll pause there in case you wanna dig into that one more.

Brian (05:34.5)
Okay, so I’m just curious when you thought, gotta create this, how did you frame it as around like what problem needs to be solved and this is how it could get solved.

Felicia (05:49.362)
Yeah, it’s a really good question. And it took me a while to figure out the right approach actually, because when I first started it, so it’s actually 12 years ago this month that I started the company. And I first thought I would start it as a consumer company, working directly with families like my sister and just helping them navigate the process. And I actually raised an angel round of investment, started working with families, got some traction, raised another investment round.

Brian (05:51.096)
Thank

Brian (05:59.695)
Okay.

Brian (06:05.892)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (06:17.994)
Um, and I had helped a few hundred families, but ultimately, you know, the government or agencies control the process. And so I was kind of holding people’s hand through a process I didn’t control. So I just wasn’t helping very much. uh, yeah.

Brian (06:32.762)
Yeah, that’s really good.

Courtney Williams (06:34.52)
Thank

Felicia (06:34.812)
Yeah, and so I basically went through a pretty painful, you know, pivot process where I was like, okay, like this approach isn’t working. And actually the team had gone from one person, me up to six people. And then it went back to just me after two and a half years. And that’s when I spent four months shadowing child welfare social workers in San Francisco County, which was the first county we worked in.

Brian (07:02.12)
huh.

Felicia (07:03.594)
And, uh, and that’s, that’s when things really started to click because again, I was approaching it only from the family side at first, cause that’s where my sister’s experience was. But once I started shadowing social workers and seeing their day to day and seeing how much they used paper and Excel spreadsheets and sticky notes and how they were really trying to do a great job, but they didn’t have good tools. And so things would fall through the cracks. And, um, that’s when it started to click of like, Oh, here’s like, I need to help families, but actually 90 % of what we built is actually for social workers.

now to help them more easily get family through the process. So that was a big unlock. then so that was in 2016, I did the shadowing. And then we sort of rebuilt the team from there. And we’ve grown to about 100 people now.

Brian (07:51.269)
I love that story. One just as an entrepreneur, a social entrepreneur that you or I have a friend of mine who says, don’t try to solve a problem until you feel it. And you were feeling your sister’s problem. So you did the right thing, but then realized that, like I said, the other side has all the control and it controls the system that is…

Courtney Williams (07:51.352)
Wow.

Felicia (07:54.122)
Thank

Brian (08:19.78)
hard to navigate that you personally went through that growth, shrink, growth again, feeling the problem from the other side. Man, I I love that story. So what, what, what, so if I feel like I, and most of our listeners know what it feels like on the foster parent side, what was the problem that you were like, gosh, now I know what the social worker is feeling. And this is.

Felicia (08:30.759)
Thank you.

Felicia (08:41.407)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (08:47.774)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (08:48.408)
this needs to get solved. And if I solve that, that’ll help both sides.

Felicia (08:53.82)
Yeah, well, it was really how manual it was for the social workers. So I mentioned the 70 column Excel spreadsheet and, you know, pretty much every agency around the country I’ve talked to has some version of that. Like I mentioned that and then they start to laugh and they’re like, yeah, we have one of those. So it’s basically a spreadsheet that each row is a family and each column is a requirement, like a form, a background check, a training.

Brian (09:05.828)
Thanks

Mm.

Felicia (09:18.442)
And imagine you’re on a team of, you know, 20 social workers and, know, there’s, there’s a spreadsheet with like a thousand rows and 70 columns. It’s just, it’s really hard to come in and figure out what should you focus on that day. And so, and a lot of, you know, social workers hate the spreadsheet. And so they end up doing things on just paper and sticky notes. And then if the social worker leaves the agency, which unfortunately there’s a lot of social worker turnover, um, they only might get lost entirely because they weren’t put in the spreadsheet.

Brian (09:44.654)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (09:48.348)
They were just on a sticky note still and the social worker left. And then the family calls in and they’re like, oh wait, who are you? We don’t have any record of you, right? And that’s when you see the really bad experiences for families that you’re like, oh my gosh, you know? And so.

Brian (10:01.176)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (10:05.29)
Yeah, I started to have empathy. I had talked to a lot of families and I was like, man, this is so hard for you. And I think seeing the social worker side, I was like, this is why it’s hard because they’re working super hard, but they have, they don’t have good tools to do what they’re trying to do. And they’re frustrated too. So just really try to, yeah, I spent a lot of time shadowing the social workers and being like, okay, like it would be useful if you could just log in and see these are my families. This is what’s done, what’s not done. This is what’s coming due this, you know.

Brian (10:09.347)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Williams (10:18.435)
Hmm.

Brian (10:33.998)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Felicia (10:35.244)
you

sort by which families have been in the process longest and what’s outstanding and things along those lines so they could just be like, what should I focus on today? And then we also try to just automate what we can. So for example, we remind families to complete things. So like if a family signed up and started working on it, but then they stopped, we’ll kind of remind them like, hey, log in and finish that. So that takes some of that onus off of the worker from having to do that. We also only ask information once.

I think there’s a lot of forums that ask for the same information. So if you fill it out once or the social work fills it out once, we’ll populate it in all the right places.

We automate reference checks. So if you’ve been through the licensing process, you know, you had to have references from friends or family. And basically the, the family can just put in the name and contact information of the reference and Binti will automatically send them an email with the reference and they can complete it on their computer or other mobile phone. We’ll actually remind them if they don’t do it. And then on the social worker side, the references just show up. And prior to that, a lot of times social workers having to physically mail the references or email.

Brian (11:21.976)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (11:45.784)
them PDFs and call them. So social workers are like, it’s magic. The references just show up. I don’t have to do anything. So we really just try to streamline the administrative work so that social workers can focus on the assessment of the family, engagement with the family.

Brian (12:00.385)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Courtney Williams (12:01.55)
And I love it. I mean, I love systems. I’m a systems person, but I told you that I use this in my past. I, at America’s Kids Belong, Colorado Kids Belong, we used to have a contract with one of our counties recruiting and I would train the foster families and then I’d go into Binti and I’d mark off, you know, the things that they had done, but be able to just get a big picture, you know, cause I was only one little slice of the people on there. So it was not only that, but then the caseworkers could see.

very easily without having to email me and ask me questions or things like I could put notes in there. I could click when they finished something or these people didn’t finish this training. And it just made my job so much easier to be able to get that big picture or like, okay, now we’re redoing module seven. Who all needs module seven? You could easily see who needs that specific training. Which on the flip side, I now live in a smaller county and I’m a foster parent. And just this week our foster

Brian (12:36.846)
Mm.

Courtney Williams (12:55.918)
caseworker came over and she’s got this file folder, no joke. It’s probably two inches thick on our family. And she brings it every time she comes over and she’s got to flip through and see like, which cars need to be registered, know, re-registered, and registration for, which kids need their medicals. And she’s flipping through all these papers. And I’m thinking, if you just had Binti, this would be so much easier. So I’m actually going to call them after this and be like, hey, have you guys ever considered?

Felicia (13:16.304)
That would be great. Give them my contact info.

Brian (13:19.64)
Hahaha!

Courtney Williams (13:23.694)
But yeah, I love the system of it and how it automates so many things. makes, you know, when I did that role, it made my job a lot easier.

Felicia (13:32.34)
Thank you for saying that. Yeah, think one of the things we really tried to do is understand what are the different roles within the agency and what access do they need and how should they collaborate. And so to your point, yeah, we observed that trainers.

would have to get pinged a lot from social workers. Like, hey, did my family complete this? And then they’re sending a spreadsheet of attendance and it’s kind of messy. And so we added a trainer role where to your point, you can go and you can log training attendance, social workers can just see it, just like reducing that back and forth.

So yeah, we now have configurable permissions where every agency can tell us exactly what are the roles of different team members and what kinds of things should they be able to view, what kind of things should they edit so that everyone can collaborate on what they need to, but also people don’t need to see what they don’t need to see too. So anyway, yeah, thanks for sharing that.

Brian (14:30.734)
So I’m thinking about a lot of our listeners who are still, they’re exploring foster care. so if they were saying, hey, I want to take a step into this, meeting with my county or agency, can they ask like, hey, do you guys use Benti? And so that my experience will be better than typical or?

Felicia (14:37.268)
Thank

Brian (14:59.984)
What’s the way to go about that?

Felicia (15:01.802)
I mean, I would love if everyone asked that because then if agencies aren’t using us, they’ll be like, what’s this Binti? I better get that. in general, if we work in a county or a state or a private agency, Binti has an option to everyone. it’s not that, know, like basically if you’re applying with them, they’ll send you a link and then you just apply on there.

Or, you know, there are some people that opt for paper. So typically around 80 % of families in agencies that we work with use BINTI and the other 20 % are like, hey, I want to use paper. And then the social worker can upload it to BINTI. But I guess the point is, you know, they should proactively offer it if they use it. You wouldn’t have to necessarily ask, but yeah, if you want to ask, if someone gives you a stack of paper, you could definitely ask them, hey, why don’t you use BINTI? And that would be wonderful.

Brian (15:42.436)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Williams (15:50.958)
No place.

Brian (15:52.27)
Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, a lot of people are very aware that AI is starting to be integrated into everything that’s technology. And I understand that you might be leaning into that as well and teaming up with Anthropic to improve. share a little bit of what’s happening there.

Felicia (16:04.991)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (16:16.646)
Yeah. So, you know, we look at AI as another tool in our toolbox to build, impactful things in, child welfare. And first of all, I want to share that our philosophy, cause I think a lot of people are excited about AI, also cautious about AI, which makes sense. And our philosophy on AI is first of all, you know, we partner with Anthropic.

Brian (16:31.972)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (16:37.706)
to, you know, they don’t train on the data. So your data is not out there kind of training their models. So we’re very focused on security. We also, we don’t use AI to make decisions or recommendations. So we’re not gonna say, this is a good family or you should remove this child or anything along those lines, but we use it to streamline administrative work.

Brian (16:44.31)
Okay.

Brian (17:01.922)
Okay, I like that. Good. Yeah.

Felicia (17:03.69)
And then our third thing is everything that AI does is saved as a draft and it still has to be human reviewed. So those are kind of our approaches to it. So with that said, the few things that we’ve launched so far, first of all, we’ve launched language support. So.

Brian (17:12.004)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (17:21.264)
if families want to apply in different languages, they can apply in the language they’re most comfortable in and everything in Binti will show up in that language. And then a copy will be saved in that language, but also be translated to English for the social worker. So that particularly, you know, that can be useful for all kinds of foster families, but it comes up a lot for kinship families as well. So that’s one thing we’ve launched. Another thing we’ve launched is chat with your case. This is only on the social worker side. So they can chat with the

Brian (17:41.038)
Yes.

Felicia (17:51.12)
and just ask quick questions and it’ll just find the answers. It could be in case notes or in forms, so just save them time to get quick answers of things. And then the third, which I think is the most impactful and one I’m most excited about.

is a feature that lets social workers record meetings with families. So it could be on their home study visit and it could be a two hour conversation and they record the meeting with the permission of the family. And then Binti takes that recording and we fill out a draft of the paperwork for the social worker. So again, we’re not gonna make decisions or recommendations, but let’s say, Courtney, you’re in the interview and we ask, why did you decide to become a foster parent? And you answer and there’s a question on the form.

about that question, it’ll fill in what you said in that spot. Everything will be saved as a draft and then the social worker can just go in and review it and add things and edit things. We can also take handwritten notes. So if the social worker instead in the meeting just jot down a wrench of handwritten notes, we can take that and fill out a draft of the forms. We can also generate a case note. So what’s really exciting is social workers that are leaning into using this, they say that home studies used to take them eight hours to write.

Brian (18:49.495)
Okay.

Felicia (19:03.308)
and now it’s taking like two. And yeah, it’s just saving a of the manual kind of data entry time. And I think that that can make a big difference because nobody has eight hours straight in a day, right? So they end up doing an hour and day, the next day an hour, you know, it’s kind of broken up in between other things. So it can actually delay, you know, a family getting licensed. And so what we’re seeing is social workers that are leading into using this are reducing their time to approval by 11 days.

Brian (19:03.47)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (19:33.258)
So yeah, so we’re really excited about that one.

Brian (19:33.482)
great. Yeah.

Brian (19:39.365)
So I just again, just now I want to for our listeners, I’m just trying to make this explain it to me, you know, like I’m in fifth grade. Let’s take a do an A B split. We’ve got our controlled group A who it’s a foster parent. They have they’re going through certification. And.

their agency or county does not use Benti. And then you have their twin is in a different county and using a different agency that does use Benti. What are the key primary experiences that are gonna differentiate the two? Both kind of just.

anything that feels maybe emotive, also a timeline, comparing contrast, the two experiences.

Felicia (20:43.816)
Yeah, definitely. So in agencies that don’t use Binti, typically you’ll have to complete everything on physical paper. So there’ll be kind of a stack of paperwork. You’ll have to complete it there. Whereas with Binti, you can do everything online, either on your computer, tablet or mobile phone.

Without Binti, there will be a lot of the same questions on different forms. So you’ll have to fill out your name 10 times, your address five times. Binti, you’ll only fill out each field once and we’ll kind of populate it onto all the right places. Your friends and family will have to do it on paper. Yeah. Your friends and family will have to do the references on paper. Other adults in your home will have to complete.

Brian (21:09.967)
Yes. Uh huh. Uh huh.

Brian (21:18.292)
thank God.

Courtney Williams (21:19.465)
Thank

Brian (21:23.658)
huh.

Felicia (21:31.476)
forms on paper, whereas with BINTI, that can be all done online for them as well. And then, yeah, your social worker will have their administrative work streamlined with BINTI and will most likely get back to you more quickly and be kind of more on top of your case. And you’ll be less likely to drop out on BINTI. So on average, agencies…

Brian (21:34.83)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (21:56.12)
Okay, that’s huge.

Felicia (21:58.066)
Yeah, agencies approve 30 % more families the first year working with Binti compared to the year before. And I think it’s because a lot of families kind of drop out in the process due to frustration or there’s those workers not getting back to them because they get lost in the process or things along those lines. Also, you know, if you’re on your couch on a Saturday and you’re like, you know what, I’m ready to take the leap. want to start the application process.

you if an agency uses Binti, you can on your phone just like start the process where if an agency doesn’t, you might call their number, but they’re not open because it’s the weekend. And then they call you back, but you’re at work. And then you play this phone tag and then it becomes frustrating and you might not even do it. So we kind of help people get started when they’re ready, which I think helps with that 30 % number as well. And then

Brian (22:29.646)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (22:40.206)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Williams (22:43.95)
That’s huge.

Felicia (22:45.13)
the time it will take you to get through the process will be faster. So on average, agencies in their first year with BIN-TEA are 18 % faster than the year before, and it can keep getting faster year over year. The state of Rhode Island has worked with us for years, and they’re now 75 % faster than they were when they started. And their team definitely did other things. We weren’t the only thing that they’ve done over those years, but I think we were definitely part of it.

Brian (23:05.73)
Wow. Yeah. huh.

Felicia (23:13.768)
So yeah, I think those are, and then if your social worker changes, which can happen, I think before Binti, you might have to re-complete paperwork because it was in their bag or something. Whereas with Binti, everything will be saved and they’ll kind of pick up where the other person left off.

Brian (23:18.51)
Yes.

Brian (23:24.292)
Hmm.

Brian (23:29.646)
That’s huge because so many people who are in this, they do get so frustrated. They’re like, you told me there was a big need and this is just dragging on forever. And I’m filling out and repeating things. Then there’s this huge delays between turning stuff in and hearing back. it is, you’re like, I just, I can’t finish this, it’s taking too long. So that’s great.

Courtney Williams (23:29.71)
you

Felicia (23:56.596)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Williams (23:59.023)
What about the people I know when I was recruiting, especially with kin, there were a handful of people, not a lot, but there are a handful of people who don’t have access to a computer or don’t like computers. So what happens in a case like that?

Felicia (24:11.149)
Yeah, so for those families, they can still complete it on paper. And then the social worker can take it and they can scan it into Binti. so this way, everything’s still in Binti for records. And then the social worker can still do their part online. So, you when they’re completing their home study, they can still do their pieces online. So yeah, that’s how that works. And I would say about, you know, it varies depending on the agency, but around 20 % of families are in that.

Brian (24:19.14)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (24:37.044)
category where they’re not tech savvy or they just prefer paper.

Courtney Williams (24:43.228)
So what are some other things Binti is doing or what are some of your hopes for the future with Binti?

Felicia (24:48.36)
Yeah, definitely. you know, after we launched licensing and we started having a lot of traction with it, well, first of all, we spent a lot of time shadowing agencies, right? And so…

We were working with the licensing team, but I was like, who is that team over there and what are they doing? Right. I started just shadowing all of the different teams in child welfare. And obviously licensing is kind of several workflows that child welfare agencies do. basically I saw that all of those other teams are also doing things incredibly manually and there’s a lot of opportunity for, for software to improve.

you know, and save social worker time and improve outcomes for children. And so we were basically going team by team and building a robust software solution for each of the teams. And we’ve now done that across each of the workflows and child welfare. We’ve launched five of them. The other three we’ve built, but we haven’t we haven’t launched in an agency yet. I’ll maybe touch on a few of them. So, you know, we’ve launched placements. Placements matches families with children for foster care and adoption focused on

Brian (25:44.099)
Okay, yeah.

Felicia (25:50.3)
keeping siblings together, keeping children in their school of origin, near their community of origin, but also matching based on preferences. if a family says, well, I’m open to this age and I live in this area, it’s like, okay, this child comes into care, this could be the best fit. So that’s our placements module. Our case management module focuses on tracking services and visits to children and families. Our most recent two…

Brian (25:54.436)
Great.

Felicia (26:15.474)
are perhaps the ones I’m the most excited about since licensing. So family finding focuses on finding more.

kin of children. And we integrate with Thompson Reuters Clear Product to basically do like an online people search to find other people with the same name that have lived in the same address and just find more potential kin and then help agencies do bulk outreach to them to find them. And then like build a family tree.

And basically we’re seeing a significant increase in the kinship connections found per child when agencies launch with that. And these are not just replacements, sometimes it’s placements, but sometimes it’s just supportive adults in their life, right? They can do visits and they can visit holidays and they can be supportive to the family for reunification or different things like that.

Brian (27:02.702)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (27:11.846)
So that’s been a really fulfilling product. We’ve launched that in the state of Kentucky, the state of Maryland, Los Angeles County, and many more in the last couple of years. And then our most recent product that we launched is called Service of Feral Management. And we really launched that with a focus on prevention, but it can be used for any services that an agency offers. So basically the problem we were trying to solve with that product was

If a state or county is giving prevention services to a family or reunification services, typically they are not the one that do the services. It’s a network of hundreds of nonprofits around the state that does mental health services or substance abuse counseling or various other programs. And they have to send out the referral and they might say, hey, there’s this mother, Susie, and she needs to get these services and they send it to a nonprofit.

But then the nonprofit needs to tell them, hey, this is what happened. She showed up or she didn’t show up. this is what happened in the sessions. And then the state needs to take that and aggregate it and ultimately claim to the federal government for FFPSA or for other funding sources. But it’s really challenging. Imagine, again, hundreds of nonprofits and you’re sending them emails and they’re sending you back things in different formats. And it’s really hard for you to get a feel for like.

Brian (28:15.794)
Ahem.

Felicia (28:32.494)
percentage of our families are actually getting the services? Where are there gaps in our state where people are on wait lists? And then being able to aggregate everything for federal claiming. And so we basically built a…

a closed loop referral system that lets states send out referrals. The provider will get an email. They can click. They can accept or reject the referral. And then if they accept it, they’re reminded to answer certain questions about what happened to the family. And then it’s all aggregated in an easy to use dashboard for the state, both to have visibility across the state of what’s happening with their services as well as for federal claiming. So we’ve launched that in a number of agencies

as well and really the goal is like driving prevention and ratification but it could also be for services for youth aging out of care as well.

Courtney Williams (29:23.054)
Okay.

Brian (29:24.43)
So Felicia, you illustrated that the child welfare system is a complex system and there isn’t a silver bullet, which so many people, they do look for that. Like what’s the one thing that will fix everything? And that just doesn’t exist. But with that said, and since you have gotten so, I’d say back to the feeling the problem and

Felicia (29:41.514)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (29:54.263)
empathizing with the caseworkers. If you had a magic wand and you thought, wow, I don’t have to build anything. I can just wave a wand. What would be the one thing that you’d say, gosh, I wish I could change this about the foster care system?

Felicia (30:10.538)
Thank

Felicia (30:21.788)
Yeah, it’s a really good question.

Felicia (30:29.672)
Well, I guess taking a step back, the federal government, ACF, I really like a lot of the initiatives that they’re doing right now. You’ve probably seen the initiative of a home for every child. And basically, their whole push is increase families, which obviously we’re huge believers in and try to support with our licensing module. And then in the denominator, it’s reduce children in care. So the goal is more families than children, right?

Brian (30:48.099)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (30:55.62)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (30:58.09)
And we feel like we want to support reducing children in care through family finding and our, know, service of rural management, which focuses on prevention. I think that historically the funding from ACF to states for technology has been focused on these state child welfare systems. It’s CWIS is the acronym. And

Brian (31:06.98)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (31:21.416)
You know, these systems, you may have seen it in the counties you’ve worked with. A lot of them are 30 years old, but, you know, and, but increasingly states are modernizing and spending a ton of money. I’m talking $50, $100 million to modernize these state systems. But really the old ones and the new ones focus more on just being a database to enter data for reporting and compliance. So, you know,

So social workers do all their real work on paper, Excel, and sticky notes, and then they go into the estate system and enter data for reporting and compliance. And I feel like what Binti has tried to do is actually replace the manual work and not be another step in the process. so I think some of the stuff that we’re trying to advocate for are for ACF to really focus on funding systems that move the needle.

Brian (32:04.601)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (32:18.076)
that drive outcomes, right? That like increase families or reduce children care and not just these like compliance systems that frankly are extremely costly and are just like another administrative burden for social workers. So we’re trying to kind of advocate for, know, just different, you know,

Brian (32:20.898)
Yes. Yep.

Felicia (32:43.59)
different funding mechanisms for like, let’s say like innovation grants that, you know, that states can really lean into getting systems that move the needle as opposed to the funding just being for these kind of compliance systems. And by the way, Binti has now built out a full CWIS system. So we feel like

we can actually rip and replace these systems and be the full system of record at this point because we have all eight of the pieces. When we work with states, we typically say, start with one piece and we can launch it in months. And then if you love it, let’s keep adding it on. that’s our pitch to states is do it modularly as opposed to do a big bang that can take five years and cost so much money. But I think if I could wave a magic wand, know,

Brian (33:06.937)
Mm.

Brian (33:10.468)
Mm.

Brian (33:26.052)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Felicia (33:33.052)
ACF would kind of change the incentives to states to encourage modularity and discourage these big bang bills that I think are not working. And I do think this administration is looking to do things differently and really doesn’t like, you know, spending on systems that aren’t working. we’ll see. Hopefully they’ll move in that direction.

Brian (33:53.207)
Yeah.

Brian (33:57.017)
On the modularity, is there always one that is like, this is the one you ought to start with, or is it different from place to place?

Courtney Williams (33:57.305)
Thank

Felicia (34:05.864)
Yeah, it’s a good question. historically, we always told people to start with licensing because placements and case management really build on top of it. But family finding and service referral management can also be the first module that agencies launch with. it’s a little bit more, yeah, it depends on what the priorities of the agency are, of what they start with.

Courtney Williams (34:28.502)
We just hear so many people complaining about the system all the time. that is a question I get from random people that talk to me about foster care. It’s like, well, I don’t want to be involved because of the system. And what would you change with the system? And I do love how it seems like you guys are taking that. we all understand the system is complex. We understand that it’s not, there’s not this easy thing that we’re going to wave our wand and it’s going to change and make the system great. But there are little things that we can do and big things we can do. And I say, is one of those because when it

Felicia (34:38.922)
and

Courtney Williams (34:56.942)
comes to caseworker turnover, when it comes to foster parent attrition, those are probably the things we need to focus on if we want to make a change. And BINTI is one way. You you incorporate BINTI, you’re going to have hopefully less caseworker turnover. Hopefully you’re going to have foster parents staying with it longer, or even just staying in the process of licensure longer because of things you have mentioned. So I do see, you know, just the growth that counties and people will see if they

Felicia (35:17.225)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Williams (35:26.668)
make a leap like adding binti. yeah.

Felicia (35:30.186)
Thank you, I appreciate it.

Yeah, and there’s so many more things we want to do over time. You you talk about foster parent nutrition. It’s a really good point. I think we focused on mostly on, okay, let’s get families through the process. have, you know, fewer families drop out in the process and then let’s renew them really easily. But actually, it’s funny you should say foster parent nutrition because that’s really on our mind this year. We’re like, okay, what is like the next thing that we can really support it, you know, for foster parents? And we haven’t focused that much on nutrition before. You know, what are all the reasons people drop out? And so this year we’re kind

of looking at that, we’re considering helping agencies have like surveys to foster parents of just like how are you doing and then like highlighting like these are the ones that are struggling like make sure to check in on those ones and also focusing on supporting respite more and like helping respite families get through helping people request respite and things like that. So those are those are some things that we’re wanting to lean into and start supporting with.

Brian (36:28.672)
Sorry, Brian Edmond, this is where we hit pause and you edit. I had someone at my door. We have a delivery and so Julie left. So I know we’re close to done, but yeah, you just pause for a second and then we’ll finish up. I apologize.

Felicia (36:39.882)
Thank

Courtney Williams (36:44.183)
Okay. That’s okay. I’m going make it out of this.

Felicia (36:44.692)
No worries.

Felicia (36:58.846)
While we have the pause, there anything you feel like that you want me to touch on that I haven’t?

Courtney Williams (37:09.23)
Um, I can’t think of anything. I mean, do you have any, um, that would be the word, um, like, I’m mostly like a Google review, like a review story or something where somebody shared with you how it’s either foster parent side or caseworker side of just their experience and changing, making a difference for them.

Felicia (37:32.348)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I can do that. Yeah. Yeah.

Courtney Williams (37:35.394)
Okay.

Courtney Williams (37:53.167)
How do you guys recruit to new counties? Is it just word of mouth kind of, or how do you try to get a county or agency to use you?

Felicia (38:03.536)
Yeah, it’s a good question. go to a lot of conferences. So there’s some national conferences, but there’s like typically one a year in each state. So we go to those, we try to get a booth, speak on a panel. We do some cold outreach. We get warm intros from other agencies in the state. And then we also do some government affairs. That’s more at the state level, but getting warm intros to folks that way.

Courtney Williams (38:31.96)
lesson.

Brian (38:40.888)
Let’s work across. Alright, happy New Year’s. Thank you.

Felicia (38:48.404)
Thank you so much for having me. This is really nice. And it’s funny, I’ve only done a few other podcasts, but they weren’t like child welfare specific. You they were more like broader business ones. And so your questions are a lot more nuanced, you know.

Courtney Williams (39:02.296)
Yeah, awesome. I have to let us know how it is.

Brian (39:03.671)
New mattress!

The older I get, softer I need for my hips, man. It’s just like, I wake up in the morning, like, was I in a fight last night? Okay, let’s wrap this up. My apologies again, but I think, yeah, we’re okay.

Felicia (39:10.952)
Thank

Courtney Williams (39:14.808)
you

Courtney Williams (39:22.446)
So Brian, I came up, we were chatting and I have a question for her. And then if you want to take my last question, we’ll just end it at that.

Felicia (39:22.494)
no worries!

Brian (39:27.02)
OK. OK. Yep. Great.

Courtney Williams (39:31.928)
So question for you, do you have any great stories or reviews from caseworkers or a foster parent that has just shared how this has changed their role in using BINTI?

Felicia (39:41.578)
Yeah, definitely. A couple come to mind. There was one family that years ago I met them and they shared with me that they had previously applied and dropped out of the process when it was very paper based and they felt it was overwhelming and maybe the agency wasn’t responsive and things like that. And then they

Brian (39:57.316)
Hmm.

Felicia (40:05.736)
decided to reapply and the agency had adopted BINTI and it was a lot easier and they got through really fast and I ended up meeting them at an event and it was just very fulfilling. At that point they had fostered a couple of children and then adopted the second one.

And so it was just very fulfilling to be like, wow, OK, like, you know, they got through the process partly because of us. And, you know, we helped be more welcoming so that they actually got through the process. So that was really fulfilling. And then on the social worker side, there’s a lot of social worker stories, but, you know, maybe one recent one is with the launch of our A.I. tools. And you would think that.

know, when we launch new tools, sometimes it’s the more tech savvy ones that adopt it more quickly, right? And then they kind of share it with others in their office. But what’s interesting is I think,

Brian (40:52.6)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (40:57.886)
You know, some of the folks that have leaned into AI or maybe the less tech savvy folks, because they’re not as fast typers. And so they’re, they’ve kind of leapfrogged almost. And they’re like, okay, I can record this meeting for two hours. And then it’s going to save me so much time filling out this paperwork. so, you know, some of the early adopters are actually not as tech savvy, but they’re like, this is really saving me so much time. Which was pretty cool to see and, and exciting.

Because we always try to build Binti to be very accessible and we know that not all social workers are super tech savvy and we want to build for them to make their lives easier. So that was fulfilling. And then maybe lastly, on our family finding module, just hearing some of the stories of some of the kin that folks have found. There’s even been a number of fathers found that were unknown.

to children and then like their parents take the child, know, either as a placement or become a supportive connection. And so just hearing these like stories of people that didn’t know that their relatives were in care and then they’re excited to step up and help has been really fulfilling too.

Brian (42:14.978)
And all those things drive all the way down to the kid who is now having a better experience during a very hard time where they aren’t having families quit on them, social workers quit on them, that they’re having better placements. so, mean, again, that is the heart of it. I know you’re helping adults, but it’s because adults are having a better

outcomes that the kid has a better outcome.

Felicia (42:50.312)
Yeah, thank you. That’s all about.

Brian (42:50.486)
Okay, let’s wrap this up. And we do this with a lot of interviews. How would you finish this sentence? What kids in foster care really need is.

Courtney Williams (42:52.43)
Hmm.

Felicia (43:05.746)
unconditional love and support.

Brian (43:08.984)
and you have some family that have experienced that. Yeah.

Felicia (43:15.12)
Exactly. I think we all need unconditional love and you know that’s really what we’re trying to do at Binti is you know by either approving foster families or finding kin or helping families stay together with prevention. It’s like how do we just help children have the love and support of a family that they deserve.

Brian (43:33.176)
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So for our listeners, and we do have a surprising amount of caseworkers who listen to this podcast. And of course we have people who are fostering. How can either group of people say, gosh, I would love to have Binti. What would be their next step?

Courtney Williams (43:34.35)
Thank

Felicia (43:59.188)
Yeah, definitely. mean…

First of all, folks are welcome to reach out to me. My email is just felicia, F-E-L-I-C-I-A at binti.com. Our more general email is partnerships at binti.com. So if you’re, if you’re curious to learn for yourself or your agency, please just reach out. We’ll be happy to share more information. Or if you’re a foster family, feel free to suggest it to your, to your agency. you know, I mean, I feel like if an agency is hearing it from their foster parents, that this could be a useful tool that might be a catalyst for them.

Brian (44:23.972)
Mm-hmm.

Felicia (44:30.794)
to make the leap. So yeah, if you’re curious about what we’ve heard, please go ahead and do that.

Brian (44:37.11)
Awesome. Well, thank you, Felicia. Really grateful for you using your brains for such a heart-tugging issue.

Courtney Williams (44:37.774)
Awesome.

Courtney Williams (44:48.482)
Yeah, making a change. Have a good day.

Felicia (44:48.916)
Thank you so much. And thank you so much for having me.

Brian (44:51.566)
of course.

Felicia (44:55.028)
Bye.