Nowadays young people perform many of their daily activities via ICT tools. They stay connected with friends via communicators, they search information online, they educate through open educational platforms, or entertain themselves through online gaming, television platforms, or social media. The Pew Internet Center found that 95% of teens now have smartphones or access to one and use them on a regular daily basis (Anderson & Jiang, 2018). Yet, kids under foster care have a restricted access to the ICT activities due to the higher risk of harm, or abuse, and lower parental control over its use (Badillo-Urquiola, Page, & Wisniewski, 2019).

This digital exclusion caused by the inability to recognize dangers related to ICT usage may further leave foster youth at societal disadvantage and economical exclusion caused by the lack of digital skills, when compared to their peers in regular families. Therefore, strong emphasis has been put at improving digital access for foster youth, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools, universities and workplaces transitioned to online learning, or working.

Aksantys, together with other partners, develops an educational programme aimed at increasing the skills of foster teenagers, which are necessary to function in today’s fast-changing digital world. The project activities include: the digital skills need analysis of foster teenagers to identify their knowledge gaps; the development of educational programme, which then will be implemented within foster homes’ educational curricula; the creation of a tailor-made Open Educational Platform (OEP), which will be integrated with the intranet foster homes’ systems; the implementation of the trainings in 40 foster homes, with at least 300 teenagers; and the organisation of classes for minimum 40 caregivers on how to use the educational programme and its tools effectively.