"Boop!" is my Honors in the Discipline project, focused on creating a prototype for an app that reimagines the animal fostering process. It aims to make fostering more efficient, supportive, and personalized for both caregivers and animals. The app addresses existing gaps in the system by integrating research, technology, and community feedback to develop a scalable solution. This project reflects my commitment to social impact, combining practical functionality with a user-centered design to improve fostering experiences for everyone involved.

Foster caregivers feel overwhelmed due to a lack of tools for scheduling, record-keeping, and support. And as a result, foster pets, who have missing health records and insights, lower their chances of finding permanent homes.

I first conducted an industry audit. I wanted to uncover what tools and resources exist in the fostering community. I found that caregivers rely on physical logs or online platforms like Trello boards. These Methods provide some structure, but even the Trello board fell short on eficiency, collaboration, mobile assessibility, and scalability.

I also conducted a comparative tool audit, examined apps with similar functionalities looking for features like tracking, alerts, and resource sharing. The best tools offered insights such as shareable profiles, detailed calendars, and data logging, but none were tailored specifically for fostering.

I then created and distributed this 22-question survey that reached over 500 caregivers. Many from the MSPCA’s foster network. With 95 respondents, the results were eye-opening, but here are some of the main ones:

• 61% of caregivers reported to use inconsistent methods of tracking and logging their foster pets information.

• 94% said they always encounter a challenge while fostering.

• 56% said that they just let the foster coordinator pass on information about their foster pet when they go to their next caregiver or forever home.