My ChaptersWrite the weekly or monthly letter your fostering service asks for on your phone, in a few quiet minutes. Over time, the letters become a book for the child’s life story.
Android and a web version are on the way. Email me when they’re ready.
Letter 1, 7 – 12 Oct 2025
Hi Ruby!
We picked you up from the hospital at five o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. Your mum and dad gave us some really good tips about burping you, and told us they’d been calling you Roo.
You were very content leaving the hospital…
Social work records have to focus on decisions, concerns and incidents. That’s what they’re for, and they matter. But they rarely say who made a child laugh, what they had for breakfast, or how much they were loved.
Chronology
We picked you up from the hospital at five o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon. Your mum and dad told us they’d been calling you Roo.
After family time with your mum and dad, we went shopping for babygros. We’d heard your mum loves Winnie the Pooh, so we found some with Pooh on them.
Your eyes have started to follow our faces (or the dogs!) as we talk to you.
I (Rob) have decided these are your “baby dinosaur noises”, and they’re very cute!
Many people who grew up in care ask to see their records as adults. They’ll find dates, decisions and difficult things, because that’s what records have to hold.
The first Halloween, the nickname, the dog that followed them round. Written at the time, by the people who were there, so they know they were cared for.
Every letter goes into their My Chapters book. Print it at home or have it made into a proper bound book, whether they’re with you for a few weeks or many years. When they move on, an ending letter closes the chapter.
Ideas that suit the child’s age sit beside the page as you write. The lines below are from real letters to a newborn in foster care, with every name changed.
How they arrived, who they met first, the first nights.
“Megan, in particular, didn’t want to put you down!”
Feeds, bedtime, bath time. The ordinary things.
“Waking for your bottles and settling as soon as you’ve been winded.”
The funny, brave or new things only you see.
“I have decided these are your ‘baby dinosaur noises’.”
Family time, and what their parents passed on.
“She gave you some scent squares that you sleep with.”
Smiles, feeds, sleep, the sounds they make, who held them. Sounds and smells help when there isn’t much news.
New words, favourite toys, what they refused to eat, the first time they did something alone.
Their teacher and friends by name, a club or trip, a conversation worth remembering.
Write the way you’d talk to them, and leave out anything they’d cringe at.
Write to the adult they’ll be. Picture them reading it at twenty-five.
Name people and places. “Mrs Hughes, your teacher”, not “your teacher”.
Describe, don’t label. Say what happened on a hard day, and how you helped.
Keep their family in it, kindly, and don’t make promises about the future.
Stuck? Write three sentences about something that made them laugh, somewhere you went, or a bedtime moment. One is still a letter.
The best details happen in the middle of the week, not when you sit down to write. My Chapters gives you a few quick ways to catch them, so the letter is easier when its time comes.
Type a line about something that made you smile, or a funny thing they said. Notes wait for you, and when you sit down to write you choose which words go into the letter.
Too busy to type? Record a short message instead. When you want the words, My Chapters turns the recording into text on your phone, with nothing sent anywhere. If your phone can’t do that privately, the app doesn’t try, and keeps the recording for you to listen to.
The My Chapters widget shows whether a letter is waiting and how many days are left. It doesn’t show a child’s name unless you turn that on, and on the Lock Screen a name stays hidden until you unlock your phone.
Choose photos in your Photos app and share them to My Chapters. They wait on your phone until you next open the app, then go into the child’s letter. You choose whose letter they join.
Notes and recordings are only for you. They stay on your phone, encrypted, and they’re never part of a letter, an email or a book unless you choose to add their words.
This is the third weekly letter to a newborn in foster care. The names and places are changed and the photos are stock images, but the words, captions and layout are exactly as the app made them.
Roo! Oh, how you’ve grown! Your eyes have started to track what’s happening around you, following our faces (or the dogs!) as we talk to you.
You’ve been exploring more of where we live, too. We took a walk around the castle gardens, where you could hear the birds and the water from the fountain and the stream, and smell the gardeners’ herbs and roses.
You went to your first toddler group in the village hall, and got lots of cuddles from the other mums who were there that morning.
When you were born, your mum wanted to make sure the two of you could be together in whatever way was possible, so she gave you some scent squares to sleep with. You might spot her favourite one in one of the pictures.
It was also your mum’s birthday on Saturday. You made a little birthday card and a framed footprint picture with Anna to give to her, and she absolutely loved them.
Love from
Rob & Anna
27 October 2025
Photos are stock images.
No saving a PDF, finding the file, typing in email addresses or writing the same message every week. Add the social worker’s details once, and every letter after that is ready to go.
Tap Send when the letter’s done
My Chapters makes the PDF for you.
Your email opens, already filled in
The right people, a subject with the child’s reference number, a short message and the letter attached.
Tap Send in your email
It goes from your own email address, like any other email you send.
These letters are about children in care, so the app is built to keep them close.
Every letter, photo and memory is encrypted on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, behind a passcode or Face ID.
There’s no account, no server and no tracking. I never see what you write. A letter only leaves your device when you send, share or back it up.
Writing suggestions happen on the device itself, so your words aren’t sent to me or to any AI company. It even works in Aeroplane Mode.
I’m not interested in analytics. I don’t want to tweak algorithms, sell data or upsell people based on how they use the app. I’m confident My Chapters will find the people who need it.
How your data is handled, in fullI’m Sy Douglas. I’m a foster carer, and like a lot of carers I’m asked to write a regular letter to the child in our care.
I started off doing it the usual way, in a Word template on the laptop at the end of the week. It took ages, the photos never sat where I wanted them, and it didn’t look like something a child would want to keep. So I built My Chapters.
It’s been shaped by writing real letters with it every week, and by other foster carers telling me what they needed. If there’s something it doesn’t do that you’d like, email me. I read every message.
Connect with me on LinkedIn, or follow My Chapters for updates and launch news.
One subscription covers iPhone, iPad and Mac, and Family Sharing means your partner can write too. If you stop, everything you’ve written stays on your device.
Android and a web version are coming soon. Fostering services, local authorities and health and social care trusts can also buy it for their carers on one invoice.