When Ryan O’Donnell became a foster parent in 2019, he was not prepared for how many legal obstacles would inhibit his foster child’s return to his biological father.
O’Donnell said the system isn’t set up to protect the children or support their parents. The young boy had been in foster care for most of his life, and the state had never contacted his biological father. Once the father learned that he had a son, he wanted custody—but there was a lot of red tape in the way.
In 2022, after three years of dealing with the foster care system, O’Donnell founded Sunlight: a startup built to reduce the amount of time that children are in foster care by improving the quality of legal representation for those children and their parents.
“If you have access to high-quality legal representation, you have a shot at bringing your kids home,” O’Donnell said.
He added that the goal of foster care is reuniting children with their parents. It is a common misconception that children in foster care have suffered physical abuse, but in reality only about 10% have, and the other 90% are children of neglect. Often, parents have fallen through the social safety net; they may struggle to pay for childcare or healthcare and thus become unable to adequately provide for their children.
Sunlight’s product, called “Your Case Plan,” is a website and app designed to enable efficient communication between all parties involved in the foster care system—including attorneys, biological parents, foster parents, and state agencies.
The platform provides reminders for upcoming court dates, allows for documents to be easily uploaded and shared with an attorney, and facilitates opportunities for collaboration between all parties involved.
O’Donnell said that when a child is taken into Child Protective Services (CPS) custody, the case plan for parents to resume custody is generally the same for everyone. Parents must show stable employment and housing, and may have to take classes on topics such as substance abuse or anger management. But sometimes those services have years-long waiting lists, or the phone numbers provided don’t work to begin with. These issues cause further delays in court and prolong the child’s time in foster care.
When Garnell Hill, the father of O’Donnell’s foster child, began the procedures for acquiring custody, Your Case Plan helped document each step and ensure he earned credit for his actions. All of Garnell’s progress was shared with the attorney, and all the appointments he had gone to were documented for the judge to see. As of this writing, the case is ongoing.
O’Donnell said it’s an unfortunate reality that the father was presumed guilty on day one, and the attorney had to work with him to prove his innocence, rather than the other way around.
“That’s not how it should work in this country,” O’Donnell said.
After launching in July, Sunlight is now working with its first customer, the Oklahoma Office of Family Representation. Centralized offices like this—either at the state or local level—pay Sunlight a monthly subscription of $30 per case, and then families and other involved parties access the platform for free. Alternatively, individual attorneys can also pay for a subscription.
Sunlight is also looking to pilot with select attorneys in North Carolina.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Sunlight
Founder: Ryan O’Donnell (CEO)
Founded: 2022
Location: Cary
Website: getsunlight.org
Funding: Bootstrapped
Size of team: 1, full time
O’Donnell has been at the forefront of child welfare reform in the U.S., having given testimony to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in July. Earlier this year, he (with Your Case Plan) was named a finalist of Echoing Green’s fellowship program for social change leaders. Prior to launching Sunlight, he worked for several other startups and notably co-founded EmployUs, which was acquired by Hireology in 2021.
He named his latest venture “Sunlight” for the transparency and accountability he hopes to bring to the child welfare system.
“Our North Star is really around improving the social safety net, improving transparency, improving accountability—making sure these systems actually work for people that need help,” he said.
