Youth aging out of foster care and the caregivers who support them often face challenges like fragmented health information, convoluted systems, and high-stakes decisions. Between 2014 and 2021, Live Well Collaborative partnered with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Hamilton County Jobs & Family Services to design tools that make healthcare information for those in the foster system more clear, more accessible, and easier to act on.
Foster youth aging out of care and their caregivers faced a fragmented and convoluted system where critical health information was often inaccessible, preventing informed decision-making and continuity of care.
Through a multi-year collaborative approach involving interviews and empathy mapping, the team realized that improving health equity required "listening across the system" to translate complex clinical documentation into plain-language, portable tools that build trust.
The partnership produced a connected ecosystem of digital platforms and print guides that empower foster youth and caregivers to navigate healthcare independently and for clinicians and social workers to collaboratively access and contribute to foster youth health data.
“This work isn’t about one document or one tool, it’s about helping people navigate systems that weren’t designed for them.”
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Project Stakeholder
Each project addressed a different point in the foster care and healthcare journey, from youth independence to caregiver decision-making to informed consent in clinical research.
Methods used:
Over the course of several projects, the team designed and refined:
Each solution was iteratively tested and refined with end users to ensure clarity, confidence, and adoption.
These projects improved how foster youth and caregivers access, understand, and act on health information. By designing tools people actually want to use, the work reduced friction at critical moments and supported better health decision-making across the system.
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