FosterSnap: The “Uber of Foster Parenting”
Robin McGrath can hardly contain his joy as the Fiji Blue Pearl Honda Element pulls into the Laurelwood Park entrance. I know that the color is Fiji Blue Pearl because it’s the first thing he mentions to me as we meet on this crisp Saturday morning. He has good reason to be excited. This inaugural fleet of two hundred identical 2004 Honda Elements acquired at a US Customs receivership auction represents a massive leap forward for his “family evolution” enterprise headquartered here in San Mateo. Until now, FosterSnap has relied on a costly and inconsistent partnership with a local rideshare company to handle transportation logistics. But the arrival this morning of FosterSnap’s first Fiji Blue Pearl Honda Element is the harbinger of a new disruption in the convenience economy: The commoditization of foster parenting.
This is the new digital land grab–a burgeoning economy of shared resources, unused items, idle time. Like alternative rideshare companies Uber and Lyft, innovative service TaskRabbit, and a thousand more startups seeking to leverage the untapped surplus of our lives, FosterSnap wants to put your free parenting time to good use. The experience is simple. Got a few hours this weekend? Open the FosterSnap app, tap the “I’m Available” button, and within 30 minutes a FosterSnap vehicle will arrive at your location and drop off a foster child for you to spend quality time with. Sound crazy? I pose the question to McGrath.
“How crazy was it the first time you jumped into a stranger’s car instead of a taxi and called it Uber or Lyft?” he immediately responds. McGrath is a vibrant, fifty-something entrepreneur. “Actually, how crazy is it any time you step into a taxi with a strange driver?” he asks. “Regulatory control? Background checks? The reality is that today we live in a society of assumed authority and shared responsibility. Privacy and security are in the eye of the beholder.”
But these are kids, I say. They lack the judgment to make such critical decisions in the moment. Right?
McGrath smiles. “Look, there are nearly 400,000 foster kids in the system nationwide. Thank goodness the numbers are decreasing. And intra-family caretakers and loving foster homes make up the majority of the cases. But, I’m going after the 9%,” he says. “The ones in the institutions. The ones who don’t have much hope for adoption; too far from emancipation and resigned to waiting out a 7–10 year sentence.”
“…we live in a society of assumed authority and shared responsibility. Privacy and security are in the eye of the beholder.”
To McGrath, a survivor himself of a foster care childhood, the system is broken. These kids go months, even years, without meaningful contact. To have even a few hours a week of interaction with someone who cares can make a difference. Even if that means pushing the boundaries of their safety. To McGrath, slinging a kid into the world for some TLC is worth the risk.
So what qualifies me to be a “dad” today, I ask McGrath.
“You’ve got iOS 8.0.1 installed,” he laughs.
His joke strikes at a nerve for the young company. The criteria for participation are surprisingly few and this loose approach has raised the ire of more than a few rights organizations. I took FosterSnap’s personality profiler/threat assessment quiz–its only SnapParent qualifier–a few days ago and passed with flying colors. Green to be exact. Qualified SnapParents receive a green “Cleared to Parent” notification through the app. According to McGrath, the innovative quiz is the result of three years of emerging psychological research and is engineered to determine with an insignificant percentage of error whether someone is fit for duty or “Better Off Red.” I’m relieved to have been qualified (one of the app’s many behavioral triggers scientifically engineered to encourage participation), but as I stand here, I question my true ability to foster a child. My daughters are grown up now and my days of interacting with young kids seem very far behind me. I unlock my phone to the FosterSnap app and read my SnapKid’s profile.
Name: LeBron Schultheiss. Age: 11. Likes: football, baseball. Allergies: unknown.
What are we going to talk about, I wonder. How will I fill my four hour minimum SnapHang? McGrath can tell I’m processing the moment, and as we approach the vehicle and LeBron, he reminds me of a few helpful tips.
“Relax,” McGrath smiles. “You’ll find something in common, and if you don’t, the app will prompt you with SnapStarters.”(relevant conversation starters based on your overlapping interests.) “And,” he assures me, “if things go south, you can always tap ‘Oh, Snap!’” (a panic button which immediately notifies a nearby FosterSnap associate that intervention is required.)
The car doors to the shuttle suddenly open and I’m greeted by a young woman in her twenties and a blonde-haired boy in a 49ers jersey.
The woman is a Shuttler, McGrath explains, and as the title would suggest, her responsibility is to transport SnapKids from the San Mateo distribution center to their SnapHang destinations and back again. She introduces herself as Jessie and then struggles to pull LeBron from behind her where he has been unsuccessfully trying to hide from me. He’s shy and quiet, and as we awkwardly shake hands, Jessie describes the process further.
LeBron has come fresh from the distribution center where he’s spent the better part of the morning. It’s a rehabbed county jail where the kids will spend anywhere from 8–16 hours a day waiting for their personal code to be selected. When I tapped the “I’m Available” button approximately twenty-five minutes ago, LeBron’s criteria matched mine, his notification bracelet vibrated and he was directed from the holding room to the processing center where he was prepped for our SnapHang. It was a lucky shot for LeBron–his first call-up since joining the program. In these early days, many more kids will be left behind than will have their number pulled, and the distribution center, while supplied with video game consoles, books, and tablets, is not much nicer than the institutional home where the children spend most of their days.
Jessie gives LeBron a friendly nudge, and he reluctantly walks toward me. She pulls out her tablet and “checks him out”. Because of my consent via the End User License Agreement, this simple button tap means that I now have temporary legal custody of LeBron for the next 240 minutes and I will officially start banking SnapPoints for our time spent together. Jessie goes over a few more instructions and hands me the SnapParent field kit–a printed quicksteps guide, an epi pen and room for any additional medication, a whistle and two granola bars. McGrath quietly slips into the blue SUV, Jessie says one last goodbye, and they disappear from the park.
This simple button tap means that I now have temporary legal custody of LeBron for the next 240 minutes.
My afternoon with LeBron is uncomfortable. We wander around the park aimlessly. When we talk, the conversation is sparse and slow to start and mostly revolves around my feeble attempts to chat about football, one of his SnapLikes.
I do eventually learn that LeBron’s father is a german art dealer who wanted his son to have a very American life, American name, American promise. But he quickly returned to his native country when his son was only three, leaving LeBron and his mother, a tarot card reader and Oxycontin addict, to fend for themselves. His mother somehow managed to care for him up until two years ago at which time she joined a cult and leveraged a little known “freedom of spiritual pursuit” California law that allowed her to voluntarily make LeBron a ward of the state. Since then he’s been on his own jumping between county institutions and failed foster home assignments. He seems completely disinterested in my stories about my wife, our daughters and my life.
After these first few hours, I realize there’s no connection between me and LeBron. We have nothing in common, and though he’s bright and well-spoken and clearly in need of a solid, consistent male presence in his life, I find that it is laborious to stay engaged. It makes me wonder about the FosterSnap model. Every successful service experience is designed with an equitable exchange of value, but I struggle to find “what’s in it for me” with FosterSnap. Surely there are users who will find personal reward in the investment of their time, but for the vast majority, the critical scale that FosterSnap will need to become viable…will SnapPoints redeemed for discounted Amazon purchases be enough to create a social movement?
I collect myself. Our time is nearly up and I remember an industry dinner I have tonight so I pull up the app and tap “SnapWrap.” It’s time to take LeBron home.
Surely there are users who will find personal reward in the investment of their time, but for the vast majority…will SnapPoints redeemed for discounted Amazon purchases be enough to create a social movement?
Twenty minutes later, we return to the rendezvous point, and I’m relieved to see that McGrath is already there standing next to another blue Honda Element. This one is manned by a different Shuttler, a large man in his late thirties with a bushy beard. He’s standing by the open passenger door and inside are several other SnapKids awaiting activation. I say goodbye to LeBron and watch as the Shuttler checks him back in.
“How was it?” McGrath asks. I tell him that it was awkward; hard to fill the time with enough enjoyable conversation.
“Yep. That’s what we’re hearing from first time SnapParents. It gets easier, believe me.” My phone chimes and I see that with my successful check-in, I’ve earned 400 SnapPoints.
I ask McGrath to answer a few more questions as we walk back to his car. LeBron slides quietly into the back of the shuttle and sits between two boys. They don’t look at one another. The Shuttler closes the door and waves to McGrath.
I share my concerns about the model and ask McGrath about the FosterSnap business plan. What’s the longterm vision?
“This is a pilot of a pilot really,” he says. “We’re partially subsidized by the local governments and their child services functions, partially funded by charitable giving; this is about helping, giving back. But FosterSnap is the non-profit proof-of-concept of a much bigger commercial enterprise.”
The blue SUV starts up and a dozen or so birds scatter from the trees nearby.
“Why stop at kids?” McGrath asks. “Imagine being able to leverage this network of caregivers to assist your aging parents, an indigent family member, special needs–those kinds of people.”
I watch as the Element moves toward the park entrance. I think about LeBron. I have the option to add him to my SnapFavorites. I could elect to see him again after our mandatory 72 hour post-Hang mutual evaluation period and try to build on this time together.
“Imagine being able to leverage this network of caregivers to assist your aging parents, an indigent family member, special needs–those kinds of people.”
“Our lives are so busy; to be able to pull your phone out during a meeting, or at the grocery, and with just the tap of a button, send a real person to spend time with someone you love: It’s huge.”
The birds descend together on another stand of trees as the Fiji Blue Pearl Element disappears. My phone chimes once more: a SnapHang completion notification from the FosterSnap processing center. My job is done.
You can learn more about FosterSnap here.
Originally published at www.troyhitch.com on December 15, 2014.
