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Event

Fostering Futures Forum 2025—Harnessing technology for wellbeing

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Foster America

foster.america 

Tuesday
September 30, 2025
12:00pm — 6:00pm ET

Let’s Reimagine What’s Possible—Together

The MIT Media Lab’s Affective Computing Group and Foster America invite you to the second annual Fostering Futures Forum—a dynamic convening where lived expertise, human-centered design, and emerging technology come together to imagine a better way forward for children and families.

Why We’re Coming Together

Each year, more than 600,000 children enter foster care—most not because of abuse, but because their families lacked access to the resources and support they needed to stay safely together. These separations often deepen harm, disrupting families and reinforcing cycles of trauma and inequality.

Too often, families seeking help are met with surveillance—not support. When someone calls a child protection hotline out of concern, the vast majority of reports are “screened out”—meaning the system decides not to investigate and offers no meaningful help. Families are left to navigate serious challenges alone, until things worsen and removal becomes the only response. Foster care is not a neutral safety net—it often causes harm. That’s why prevention must be the goal. 

But prevention alone is not enough. For those already impacted by the system, we must also reduce harm, restore dignity, and build new tools for healing, belonging, and opportunity. That’s the work this Forum exists to advance—by lifting up ideas and solutions shaped by those who’ve lived it, and creating space for bold collaboration across sectors.

Whether you're building technology, shaping policy, designing systems, advocating for change, or living the realities these systems impact—your voice is essential. Together, we’ll explore what’s possible when we center care, creativity, and community-led innovation. 

About the 2025 Forum

The Forum spotlights the Technology Leadership Circle (TLC)—a 10-month fellowship that supports changemakers with lived experience in foster care to co-design digital concepts that reflect what families actually need to thrive. In partnership with MIT technologists and designers, TLC fellows have created early-stage wireframes that address issues like:

  • Youth self-determination and goal-setting
  • Transportation and mobility
  • Access to family records and identity tools
  • Trauma-informed caregiver matching
  • Healing and connection through gaming

These projects offer a glimpse into what’s possible when innovation is guided by lived experience—and when technology is used to center humanity, not control.

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Foster America

What to Expect

The Forum runs from 12:00 to 6:00 PM on the 4th floor of the MIT Media Lab, with the flexibility to attend part or all of the day. Lunch will be provided during our opening session.

  • TLC Project Showcases
    Experience five digital prototypes—designed by fellows and MIT collaborators—that offer fresh, human-centered solutions to longstanding challenges in public systems.
  • Panels & Workshops
    Dive into interactive sessions exploring how emerging technologies can promote dignity, equity, and practical support over surveillance and control.
  • Creative Reflection & Cross-Sector Exchange
    Engage with others across fields in spaces built for honest conversation, mutual learning, and shared imagination.
  • Closing Reception
    End the day with food, connection, and inspiration—an open space for gathering ideas and energy for what’s next.

Why This Matters

The Technology Leadership Circle and Fostering Futures Forum are grounded in a shared belief: those closest to the problems are closest to the solutions. By investing in lived expertise and community-led design, we are building a new blueprint for systems innovation—one rooted in justice, imagination, and collective power.

We hope you’ll join us to experience and support this inspiring work—and to be part of a growing network shaping the future of child and family wellbeing.

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