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Every feature in My Chapters

What does My Chapters do?

It helps foster carers write the weekly or monthly letter their fostering service asks for. You write in your own words on your phone, the app lays the letter out with your photos, sends it to the child’s social worker as a PDF from your own email, and binds the letters into a book for the child’s life story.

Below is everything version 1.0 does, and what’s planned next. If something you need isn’t here, email me.

Free for the first month, then £3.99 a month or £34.99 a year, with everything included. How paying works

Writing the letter

Weekly or monthly: Set each child to weekly or monthly letters, whichever your fostering service asks for. Letters are numbered from the day the child came to you, and dated.
Write freely or in sections: Write one letter in your own words, or in a few short sections with headings.
Ideas for their age: Ideas that suit the child’s age sit beside the page, with gentle prompts to describe what happened rather than reach for labels.
Writing suggestions: On an iPhone or iPad with Apple Intelligence, the app can suggest changes. They’re worked out on the device itself, and nothing changes unless you choose it.
Your sign-off: “Love from”, a sign-off of your own, or your family name, with your names underneath.
Larger text: Turn on larger text for a child whose letters should be easier to read.
Siri: Ask Siri to “Add to a letter” and say a line for this week’s letter. It only works while your iPhone is unlocked.

Photos

Captioned photos: Up to six photos in a letter (four in each section if you write in sections), each with a caption.
Eleven photo layouts: Below the words, big photo first, beside the words, through the letter, a small row, collage, scrapbook, round photos and more.
Share from Photos: Choose photos in the Photos app and share them to My Chapters. You pick whose letter they join.
Location removed: Photos are resized and their location details removed before they’re stored.

Designs

20 designs: Eleven everyday designs that take turns, so one week doesn’t look like the last, and nine for occasions. Change a letter’s design whenever you like. See them all.
Seasons: Autumn joins the turns from September to November, and Snowfall from December to February.
Birthdays and festivals: Christmas, Easter, Eid, Diwali, Hanukkah, Lunar New Year and Vaisakhi. A letter for the week of the child’s birthday uses the Birthday design by itself.
Simple designs: Quieter designs in a single colour, which print well.

Sending

Two taps to send: Tap Send and your email opens with the letter attached as a PDF, addressed to the people you’ve saved for that child.
Ready to file: The subject says whose letter it is and which week or month it covers, with the child’s reference number if you add one.
Initials only: Use the child’s initials in email subjects instead of their name, if your service asks.
From your own email: Letters go from your own email account, like any other email you send. They never pass through me.
Share or print: Share a letter as a PDF any other way you like, or print it.

Books and ending letters

Make a book: Bind every letter, or a stretch of time, into a PDF book with a cover, a contents page and chapters by month, by year or by the child’s age.
Covers: Choose a cover (Confetti, Classic, Photo, Night sky, Rainbow or Wildflowers) or let the app pick one that suits their age. Every word on the cover can be changed, and you can add a dedication.
Ending letters: When a child moves on, write an ending letter with guidance for their situation: adoption or a permanent family, going home, another foster home, independence, or a short or emergency stay.
Life story guidance: Help in the app on what to keep for a child’s life story, and why.

Memories, widgets and reminders

Quick notes: Type a line about something that happened. When you sit down to write, you choose which words go into the letter.
Voice memories: Record a few words instead. The app can turn them into text on your device, and if it can’t do that privately, it keeps the recording for you to listen to.
Only for you: Notes and recordings are never part of a letter, an email or a book unless you add their words.
Widgets: One shows whether a letter is waiting and how many days are left. Another starts a note or a recording from your Home Screen. Children’s names stay hidden unless you turn them on.
Reminders: A nudge each week on the day and at the time you choose. Reminders never show a child’s name.

Privacy and safety

Encrypted on your device: Letters, photos and memories are stored encrypted on your iPhone or iPad.
No account, no tracking: There’s no sign-up, no adverts and no analytics, and nothing you write is sent to me.
Lock the app: Use a passcode, Face ID or Touch ID. If you forget the passcode, reset it with your device’s own passcode.
Backups: Save a password-protected backup to a folder you choose, such as iCloud Drive, or turn on automatic backups, which keep a week of daily copies and a month of weekly ones.
In full: Privacy, in plain words explains what’s kept, where, and when anything leaves your device.

For fostering services

Letters arrive as before: By email from the carer, as a PDF, with the child’s reference number in the subject. There’s no new system to log in to.
A guide for social workers: A short guide to what the letters are, how they arrive and how privacy works.
Buying for your carers: Fostering services, local authorities and trusts can pay for their carers on one invoice. Email me to ask.

Coming next

Planned for the next update, after version 1.0 is out. Details may change before it’s released.

A Mac version: The same app on your Mac, with a menu bar and keyboard shortcuts, covered by the same subscription.
More photos: Up to twelve photos in a letter, and six in each section.
A better photo editor: Show the whole photo or zoom in, turn it round, and choose what fills the space around it.
Photos that fill the page: Let the photos grow into any empty space at the end of a letter, without adding a page.
A page of its own: Give a child’s artwork, a certificate or a card a page of its own, and scan artwork straight from the camera.
Captions that wrap: Longer captions run onto more lines instead of being cut short.
Letters for a missed week: Write a letter for an earlier week that doesn’t have one yet.
In the child’s words: Hand over your phone so the child can add something to their letter themselves.
A life story pack: Their book and letters gathered into one pack, ready to pass on when they move.
Placement anniversaries: A gentle note when a letter’s week holds the anniversary of the day the child came to you.
Clearer writing help: “Check my letter” and “Easier to read”, with every changed word highlighted.
Better books: Fuller contents pages for short books, and photos the book chooses itself cropped around faces.
Apple Pencil: Undo and redo, zoom, and a crayon for children’s drawings.
When sharing: Memories say which of you added them.