FosterPower

FosterPower is a movement to improve the lives and futures of youth in foster care by creating access to information on their benefits, protections, and legal rights.

FosterPower is an award-winning free app and website giving Florida's foster youth access to easy, digestible information about their benefits, protections, and legal rights (independent living, medical health, education, the court process, placement, monetary allowance, and more). It also includes 40 short-form TikTok-style videos sharing the experiences of former youth in foster care. In addition, FosterPower provides in-person and virtual training for youth in foster care and adults (child welfare professionals, judges, attorneys, foster parents, etc.) on children's legal rights while they remain in care.

Since launching in May 2023, FosterPower has reached over 4,500 app downloads, 22,000 website users, 120,000 video views, and trained over 500 youth in foster care and adults (child welfare professionals, judges, attorneys, foster parents, etc.) on children's legal rights while they remain in care. FosterPower's impact has garnered praise from members of Congress; it has earned recognition from various national and statewide media outlets, including NPR's All Things Considered, theSkimm, The Annie E. Casey Foundation blog, Tampa Bay Business Journal, Business Observer, and several news channels throughout Florida; and it has received multiple awards, such as the 2024 Tampa Bay Inno Awards, 2024 American Legal Technology Awards (Runner up), 2024 InnovAction Award by the College of Law Practice Management, and the 2023 Florida's Children First "Outstanding Non-Profit Champion for Children" Award.

This initiative is the first of its kind nationwide. In 2025 and the coming years, FosterPower plans to add a human trafficking section with companion training, expand in Florida with additional statewide training, and replicate in other states across the US.

There are over 23,000 children in Florida's overburdened child welfare system—over 390,000 across the United States—and many of them do not know their benefits, protections, and legal rights—until now!

Download from the App Store

Download from Google Play

How It All Started

FosterPower, formerly known as “Know Your Rights — an informational guide for teenagers in foster care” started out as a project by attorney Taylor Sartor during her last year of law school. Taylor was planning to become an attorney for kids in foster care and was serving as a Guardian ad litem volunteer for 2 teenagers. She was frustrated when trying to look up information on allowance, who was supposed to take kids to the doctor (was it the case manager or the group home? They both said it was the other’s job,) if they would qualify for extended foster care, the questions were endless –and finding the answers weren’t easy. That is when she decided she would create a guide that explains the rights of kids in foster care.

She found a team of law students who agreed to help and together they spent over 300 hours compiling laws and organizing the content. Through several grants and some luck, they were able to get some copies printed. They soon realized, however, that kids would lose these paper copies. Taylor continued to hand out booklets and provide training for the content as an attorney for kids in foster care for several years. Eventually, a new funding opportunity came along.

By this point, dozens more attorneys from the Greenberg Traurig LLP law firm and Stetson students continued to help Taylor update the content and add more sections. Additionally, user research and testing was conducted with the help of current and former foster youth themselves to make sure the content is what they want to learn and in a format they can understand and want to read. Suddenly, the dream of giving kids instant access to vital information on their benefits, protections, and rights became a reality.

Meet the Creator

Taylor Sartor is a senior attorney at the L. David Shear Children’s Law Center where she represents youth in foster care in dependency proceedings and in the education setting. She is also the creator and legal director of FosterPower, a movement to improve the lives and futures of youth in foster care by creating access to information on their benefits, protections, and legal rights. Taylor focuses on issues related to human trafficking, disabilities, commitment in psychiatric facilities, aging out of foster care, school to prison pipeline prevention, and more. She served as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Children’s Law Center from 2018-2020. Taylor received a bachelor’s degree in English literature, magna cum laude, from Florida State University in 2014. She earned her Juris Doctor with a concentration in social justice advocacy from Stetson University College of Law in 2018. Taylor is the founder of the organization Child Advocates of Stetson Law.

Meet the Team

Taylor Sartor, Esq.
Creator, Co-founder & Legal Director

Mary Rose Maloney, Esq.
Human Trafficking Project Manager

Rastko Durica
Co-founder & Product Manager

David Gray
Co-founder & Business Director

Heather Tager, Esq.
Co-founder & Advisor

Recognition

Grants

Awards

News

FosterPower is a program created and managed by Bay Area Legal Services, and funded by the Legal Services Corporation, Community Foundation Tampa Bay, Suncoast Credit Union Foundation, and private donors.

Apply for Services

Apply by phone Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m., or apply online anytime for non-emergency legal matters. Language interpreters are available to you at no cost.

How do I apply? Am I eligible?

Bay Area Legal Services

If you live or have a case in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas, Manatee, or Sarasota counties, we may be able to help.

Call (800) 625-2257 to apply for service.

Or complete our online application and we will call you back.

Statewide Legal Helplines

If you live or have a case in Florida, we may be able to help.

Senior Legal Helpline: (888) 895-7873

Veterans Legal Helpline: (866) 486-6161

Disaster Legal Helpline: (833) 514-2940

TTY: (800) 955-8771