CaringLife FAQs
CaringLife Digital Life Story FAQs
General FAQs
What is CaringLife?
CaringLife is a secure digital life story service for children and young people in foster, kinship, residential and other forms of out-of-home care. It gives children, carers and professionals one secure place to preserve photos, videos, documents, journals, milestones and important memories throughout a child’s care journey and beyond.
Who is CaringLife designed for?
CaringLife is designed for children and young people in foster care, kinship care, residential care, supported independent living, youth justice, disability services and other forms of out-of-home or alternative care.
Children and young people can access and contribute to their own life story, while carers, social workers, caseworkers, family members and other authorised people can contribute memories and important information throughout their care journey.
Why is CaringLife important?
Children and young people in care can experience changes in homes, carers and professionals, which can result in photos, documents and important childhood memories becoming lost or fragmented.
CaringLife provides one continuous digital life story that stays with the child through these changes, helping preserve their memories, personal history and important relationships throughout childhood and beyond.
How does CaringLife support children in care?
CaringLife gives children and young people in care a secure place to preserve and access the memories and information that make up their personal history.
Photos, videos, school reports, artwork, achievements, documents and everyday moments can be added throughout their care journey, creating a continuous digital life story that remains with them when placements or carers change and after they leave care.
Is CaringLife a digital life story book?
CaringLife supports digital life story work but goes beyond a traditional life story book. Rather than creating a record at a single point in time, CaringLife allows memories, photos, videos, documents and reflections to be continuously added throughout a child’s journey.
Security and Privacy
Is CaringLife secure?
Yes. CaringLife is ISO 27001 and ISO 9001 certified and uses AWS cloud infrastructure to securely process and store children’s information.
Data is stored within the child’s country of residence and does not cross international borders. Access is permission-based, with only authorised children, carers and professionals able to access relevant information.
Who can access a child’s profile on CaringLife?
Access to a child’s CaringLife account is restricted to authorised users and managed through role-based permissions.
Depending on their role, this can include the child or young person, their carers, social workers, caseworkers and other approved people. Permissions determine what each person can view, upload and manage, helping protect the child’s privacy while allowing appropriate people to contribute to their life story.
How does CaringLife comply with privacy laws in the UK, EU, US, Australia and NZ?
CaringLife is designed to support organisations responsible for children’s information in meeting applicable privacy and data-protection requirements in the countries where CaringLife operates.
This includes requirements under the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018, the EU GDPR, Australian privacy legislation and the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020, together with applicable US privacy requirements.
CaringLife uses in-country data storage, controlled access, encryption, audit logging and information-security processes to protect children’s personal information. CaringLife also supports appropriate rights relating to access, correction and deletion of personal data.
Features and Functionality
What can be stored on CaringLife?
CaringLife can securely store the memories and records that help tell a child’s life story, including photos, videos, school reports, certificates, artwork, birthday cards, letters, documents, journal entries and personal milestones.
Bringing different types of memories together creates a continuous digital record that can remain accessible throughout a child’s care journey and into adulthood.
Can children contribute to their own CaringLife profile?
Yes. Children and young people can contribute to their own CaringLife account by adding photos, videos, memories and personal reflections.
This allows their digital life story to include their own experiences and perspective, rather than being created only by carers and professionals. Their contributions remain part of the life story they can access throughout their care journey and beyond.
Can memories be shared with others?
Yes. Memories can be shared with approved people through CaringLife’s permission controls.
Access is managed so that photos, videos, documents and other memories are only visible to people authorised to see them. This allows important memories to be shared while protecting the child’s privacy.
Does CaringLife have a mobile app?
Yes. CaringLife is available through dedicated iOS and Android apps and can also be accessed on tablets and through a web browser on desktop computers.
This allows carers, children and authorised professionals to upload and access memories across different devices, wherever they are.
What should I do if I forget my CaringLife password?
Use the “Forgot Password” option on the login page. Enter your registered email address, and you’ll receive a link to reset your password.
If you are a young person who doesn’t have an email address, please ask your Case Worker to reset a temporary password for you.
I'm a Case Worker and I don't have login details - what do I do?
Please contact your Team Leader at your Authority or Agency, who should be able to set you up with an account.
If there are challenges with this, please contact us at hello@caringlife.com and we can help.
How easy is it to set up CaringLife?
CaringLife manages the setup and onboarding process with each Authority, Government Department, fostering agency or care organisation.
Our team helps establish the organisation’s account structure, users and access, with training and ongoing support provided as part of the service.
Contact us at hello@caringlife.com if you would like to get an organisational account set up.
What training is available for carers and caseworkers?
CaringLife provides online training for social workers and caseworkers, together with tutorials and supporting resources for professionals and carers.
Training, onboarding and ongoing support are included as part of CaringLife, helping organisations introduce and maintain digital life story work across their service.
Is there a cost to use CaringLife?
Authorities and agencies pay a monthly fee for active child and young person accounts. There are no additional charges for setup, training, support, storage, caseworker accounts or carer accounts.
When a young person leaves care or reaches adulthood, they can retain ongoing access to their CaringLife account without an ongoing charge to the Authority or Agency.
Carers
Can carers upload content to a child’s CaringLife profile?
Yes. Foster, kinship and other authorised carers can upload photos, videos, school reports, certificates, artwork, documents, journal entries and everyday memories to help build the child’s digital life story.
Carers can access the content they contribute but do not automatically have access to everything in the child’s CaringLife account. Other memories can be shared with them by the child or an authorised Case Worker where appropriate.
Who can see the content I upload to CaringLife?
Content uploaded by a carer can be viewed by the carer, the child or young person and their authorised Social Worker or Case Worker.
Other carers do not automatically receive access to that content. Where appropriate, a Case Worker can share selected memories with another authorised carer while maintaining the child’s privacy.
What happens if my child moves to a new family?
When a child moves to a new foster, kinship or care placement, their CaringLife account and existing digital life story remain with them.
The new carers can be connected separately to the child’s existing account, allowing new memories to continue being added without starting the child’s life story again.
Where appropriate and authorised, previous carers can remain connected and continue contributing memories. New carers do not automatically gain access to memories uploaded by previous carers.
Can I delete content I’ve uploaded by mistake?
Yes. Carers can delete content within 24 hours of uploading it to CaringLife.
After 24 hours, contact the child’s Case Worker or Social Worker if content needs to be removed.
Will the child keep access to their CaringLife profile after leaving care?
Yes. Children and young people retain ongoing access to their CaringLife account and the memories preserved for them after they leave care or reach adulthood.
Their photos, videos, documents, journal entries and other memories remain part of their digital life story, giving them continued access to their personal history beyond the care system.
Carers can also retain access to the content they personally contributed, where appropriate.
Care-Experienced Young People
Can I keep using my CaringLife profile after I leave care?
Yes. Your CaringLife account remains available to you after you leave care, allowing you to continue accessing your childhood memories, photos, videos, documents and other important parts of your life story.
You can continue using CaringLife to preserve your memories and personal history beyond your time in care.
I'm care-experienced and think I have a CaringLife account - what should I do?
If you are care-experienced and believe a CaringLife account was created for you, contact the Authority or Agency that managed your account and ask for your login details.
If you are unsure who to contact or have difficulty accessing your account, contact CaringLife and we will help you regain access where possible.