How software can digitally transform child adoption

Each new iteration of technology development creates renewed hope to be a vehicle for good and empower those in need. But it’s not the technology type that enables such work but its application. Scottsdale-based charity Both Ends Believing (BEB) is just such an example. Through the right intentions and business technology leadership, BEB has placed 3,133 orphans with families since it began in 2010.

BEB’s aim is to transform care for vulnerable children in regions with high orphan populations such as Africa and Latin America. The charity was founded by Craig Juntunen, a former quarterback in the Canadian Football League who turned tech entrepreneur after personally experiencing the challenges of adoption. BEB isn’t a traditional charity; it’s also a digital organization using technology to deal with the complexities and inefficiencies of adoption.

Today, the charity works in nations such as Congo-Brazzaville, Ethiopia, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, as well as the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Paraguay. “We’re in 13 countries with 13 production environments,” says president Mark Schwartz. “Part of the problem is children in institutional care around the world have no records, or, if they do, they’re paper-based and located where the child is.” Research for a book and movie by Juntunen found that the average adoption time for children in these regions is 33 months, leading to costs of around $28,000. “We learned we had to digitize the records,” he adds. “Our partners in federal governments need to understand the educational and medical history before they can begin trying to get them to a family.”

The desired outcome in 5 steps

That lesson led to the development of Children First Software. The free software allows orphanages to create records on birth, family, health, special needs, and education, as well as fingerprints and DNA. These essential records trigger a five-step process to match the child with the right family. The first stage is the creation of a digital record and stage two is determining if the child can be reunified with their biological family or whether foster care, domestic, or international adoption are the best options. This is carried out using the definitions of the Hague Convention, which was drawn up by the world’s nations in the last century. If adoption is in the child’s best interests, the third stage qualifies prospective families, and within Children First Software is a matching system that government bodies can use to match children with such families. This fourth stage removes the need to sift through files and instead matches a child to a family who meets their needs. Finally, the fifth element is the ability to monitor the child once they’ve been placed with a family. To date, 19,107 children have been entered into the system.

Schwartz says each of these modules was developed with close user involvement to ensure the technology continues to reflect the needs of its users. BEB has a global implementation team of 35 that works to help end-users in whichever country to become familiar with the technology and get the most from it. “We don’t just dump off an application,” he says. “You have to see it all the way through.”

In Zambia, the implementation team travels four to six times a month to children’s homes to spend one to three days training the orphanage staff on Children First Software. At times, the implementation team has been known to walk long distances to some homes as floods or the terrain prevents vehicle access.