Our mission

At TasselTurn, our mission is to improve the quality of life for at-promise youth involved in the foster care system. 

Our vision is that all youth in foster care receives the best education and is fully equipped to thrive in college, career, and life. 

We accomplish this be solving educational displacement youth in foster care experience by providing personalized, evidence-informed, education coaching over the web.

The Problem

It’s called mobility. Students in foster care change schools three times a year. Each school change results in four to six months of educational loss. This puts students in foster care years behind their non-foster peers. As a result, youth in foster care become more vulnerable to dropping out of high school or attending an alternate high school in the eighth grade. Today, only about thirty-two percent of youth in foster care earn a high school diploma.

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One caseworkers carries an average of 25 cases. With sibling pairs, this can result to one caseworker servicing as many as fifty children.

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The amount taxpayers spend on government assistance for youth who leave foster care without a basic education.

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Children enter foster care due to abuse or neglect. Child welfare agencies are designed to prioritize the safety of children in foster care. How safe is one in America without a basic education?

How can we expect one caseworker to ensure the educational needs of youth are met when they are overworked, underpaid, and undervalued? Not to mention the constraints placed on child welfare agencies.

The Solution

A streamlined education technology platform that prioritizes the educational success of youth in foster care. Our technology is accessible on smartphones, computers, and tablets. Through a near-peer model, we match youth in foster care to virtual education coaches. Coaches champion youth to graduation while facilitating our trauma-informed curriculum. Coaches and youth connect in-person monthly over meetups, designed to reinforce the virtual learning.

Personalized Learning

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  • Schools teach all students the same, but all students don’t come from the same background. Our trauma-informed curriculum takes into consideration the individual experiences that youth in care face and teach with it in mind; we don’t ignore it
  • Curriculum is determined by grade level. Curriculum for each grade level explores a new theme that teaches youth a new skill that will help them become independent upon leaving foster care
  • Coaches guide youth through curriculum

Educational Attainment

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  • Our primary focus is educational attainment– our coaches coach youth to high school graduation
  • We close the achievement gap
  • Completing high school gives youth access to additional opportunities: post-secondary education, vocational training, employment, apprenticeships

Data Harvest

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  • We collect real-time data that help child welfare agencies implement effective strategies that provide better outcomes
  • We are the first streamlined service to exclusively meet the educational needs of youth in foster care
  • Through data we provide enduring adult connections to youth– we track the meaningfulness, consistency, and scope of the connection between youth and education coach
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“Enduring adult connections are associated with healthy development and improve educational, vocational, and behavioral outcomes for foster youth up to 38 months post-care.”

                        – Professor Johanna Greeson, University of Pennsylvania

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