Hillside is committed to using research to improve our services to youth and families. As part of that commitment, we’re partnering with the University of Buffalo (UB) on a project designed to support youth who “age out” of eligibility for foster care.
A multidisciplinary UB research team has received an $800,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and Amazon to develop a machine learning system that could eventually help caseworkers and human services agencies determine the best available services for the more than 20,000 youth who annually age out of foster care without rejoining their families.
UB, a longtime research partner with Hillside, will collaborate with our Research Department in the three-year project to develop this potential tool. The experiences of youth, case workers and experts in the foster care system will all be considered during this project.
“Hillside is committed not only to helping youth and families today, but to exploring potential innovations that can help even more people tomorrow,” said Laura Maggiulli, Director of Research. “It’s great to be able to partner with the University of Buffalo on this important project.”
“Our goal is to help social workers identify youth who might benefit from preventative services, while doing so in a manner that participants within the system feel is fair and equitable,” said Kenneth Joseph, assistant professor at UB’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
Learn more about this project here.