Program Goals

The goals of YouROK, Helping Foster Youth Successfully Transition to Adulthood are:

For Youth:

• Build emotional resilience
• Improve mental health stability
• Develop healthier coping mechanisms
• Stay stable in out-of-home placement

For Social Workers:

• Better evaluate placement stability of youth in their caseload
• Better detect early signs of crisis in youth in their caseload
• Make more informed decisions with limited resources

For Foster Parents:

• Learn how to manage trauma-induced behavior exhibited by foster youth
• Learn how to practice self-regulation
• Learn how to teach self-regulation to youth in their care

Logic Model

View the Logic Model for YouROK, Helping Foster Youth Successfully Transition to Adulthood.

Essential Components

The essential components of YouROK, Helping Foster Youth Successfully Transition to Adulthood include:

• Three separate components that work together:
• The K’Bro app:
• Used by the foster youth on their smartphone
• Based on research on emotional development and positive psychology interventions
• Designed to improve emotional resilience and overall well-being in children
• Consists of five main features:
• The “Am I OK?” game
• Utilizes self-comparison techniques
• Utilizes a person-centered scales approach
• Produces an intraindividual profile which allows users to name their emotions
• Produces an “Am I OK?” Index score, which is used to measure the emotional well-being of users
• The “Deal with It!” feature
• Gives users the opportunity to learn how to resolve their problems
• The “Speak Up” feature
• Teaches users to advocate for themselves in situations where they may be concerned about confrontation
• “What’s Up?” feature
• Encourages users to practice gratitude
• The “My Tribe!” feature
• Enables anonymous peer support
• Generative AI-based Happiness Coach
• Designed to enable real-time interventions to address the extreme shortage of clinicians
• The YouROK Enterprise Dashboard and Parent Portal:
• Used by the social worker and foster parent
• Enables professionals in child protective service agencies, mental healthcare facilities, schools, and pediatric clinics, to monitor a child’s well-being prioritizing those presenting with more acute care needs before there’s a crisis.
• Designed to help social workers reduce placement disruptions
• Designed to support social workers in making more informed decisions with limited resources
• The YouROK Parent Portal:
• Used by the foster parent
• Uses connected parenting techniques that are designed to help foster parents:
• Practice self-regulation
• Teach young people self-regulation
• Provide trauma-sensitive support
• Promote resilience
• Helps foster families monitor their foster child’s emotional well-being in real-time
• Personalized positive parenting techniques to address foster youth challenges
• Integrated emergency alerts to identify children in crisis
• Improved collaboration between staff and caregivers

Program Delivery

Child/Adolescent Services

YouROK, Helping Foster Youth Successfully Transition to Adulthood directly provides services to children/adolescents and addresses the following:

• Deficits in emotional resilience that result in stress and poor coping skills often leading to disruptive behavior

Parent/Caregiver Services

YouROK, Helping Foster Youth Successfully Transition to Adulthood directly provides services to parents/caregivers and addresses the following:

• Foster parents of foster youth who may need to learn about self-regulation skills

Recommended Intensity:

Once the youth has access to K’Bro on a smartphone, they can access the app as often as they like. Normative behavior ranges anywhere from 3 times/week to 3 times/month. Social Workers are recommended to do daily check-ins with the Enterprise Dashboard and respond urgently to alerts as they happen. Foster Parents/Caregivers are recommended to do weekly check-ins with the Parent Portal and respond urgently to alerts as they happen. Ad hoc access as needed for tips on connected parenting.

Recommended Duration:

For as long as a child is under care by Child Protective Services.

Delivery Setting

This program is typically conducted in a(n):

• Virtual (Online, Telephone, Video, Zoom, etc.)

Homework

This program does not include a homework component.

Resources Needed to Run Program

The typical resources for implementing the program are:

Youth must have access to a smart phone or tablet and internet access. Staff and caregivers must have access to a computer and internet.

Manuals and Training

Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications

High school diploma for resource parents. Master’s degree or higher for social worker.

Manual Information

There is a manual that describes how to deliver this program.

Program Manual(s)

The Manual is essentially the training document delivered via Zoom training and copies can be made available upon request.

Training Information

There is training available for this program.

Training Contact:

• Patrina Mack
  patrina@yourokapps.com
  phone: (650) 380-2627

Training Type/Location:

Training is provided to social workers at the start of the contract. It can be recorded for use to train new hires. The Parent Portal is designed to be used without training. However, if there is a monthly foster parent meeting, YouROK can provide a Zoom training session during the meeting. In-person if there is a travel budget.

Number of days/hours:

Training for social workers will take 1 hour. Training for foster parents if desired is 30 mins.

Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research

Currently, there are no published, peer-reviewed research studies for YouROK, Helping Foster Youth Successfully Transition to Adulthood.

Additional References

No reference materials are currently available for YouROK, Helping Foster Youth Successfully Transition to Adulthood.