My Chapters: Letters, a guide for social workers and admin staff
What you receive when a foster carer sends a letter from My Chapters: Letters, how to file it by reference number, and how children's data stays private.
My Chapters: Letters is an iPhone and iPad app that helps foster carers write the weekly or monthly letter your service asks for. Each letter is written to the child, in the carer's own words, with photos. Over time the letters build into a keepsake book for the child's life story.
What you'll receive
Carers send letters from their own email account, as a PDF attachment. Nothing goes through our servers.
Subject line
Weekly letter for Amelia (PER12345): 5 – 11 October 2026
- The child's first name, or just their initial if the carer's service asks for that.
- The child's reference number in brackets, if the carer has added one. Use it to find the right record in your case system.
- The week or month the letter covers.
Other emails follow the same pattern:
- Monthly letter for Amelia (PER12345): October 2026
- Ending letter for Amelia (PER12345): 8 October 2026
- Letter book for Amelia (PER12345): 12 May – 11 October 2026
The message says who the letter is for and repeats the reference number on a line of its own.
The PDF is an illustrated letter, signed and dated by the carers. Letters are numbered (Letter 1, Letter 2 …) from the start of the placement, so a missing week is easy to spot. The number is in the footer of each page.
Filing
Please file letters with the child's life story materials, or wherever your service keeps them. The letters are written for the child to read when they are older. They are not case recording and don't replace the carer's usual recording or reports.
Ending letters
When a child moves on, the app guides carers to write an ending letter. The guidance covers adoption and permanence, going home, moving after a placement has ended unexpectedly, independence, and short stays. It reminds carers to:
- explain the move in the same words you have used with the child
- make clear, where true, that the move isn't the child's fault
- avoid promises about contact unless they have been agreed with you
Carers may ask you how a move has been explained to the child, so their letter matches.
Letter books
Carers can bind a child's letters into a book (PDF): a cover, contents, chapters by month or age, and the ending letter last. It's suitable for printing and for the child's life story book. Large books may arrive through a file-sharing link rather than as an attachment.
At a glance
- Format: one illustrated PDF per letter, signed and dated, numbered from the start of the placement
- How it arrives: by email from the carer, with the reference number in the subject line
- What it is: a letter for the child's life story, not case recording
- Where it's stored: encrypted on the carer's iPhone, with no account and no servers of its own
- Cost to carers: free for the first month, then £3.99 a month or £34.99 a year, or paid for by your service
- More: the My Chapters home page explains who it's for
Privacy
- Letters and photos are stored encrypted on the carer's iPhone, behind an optional passcode.
- There are no accounts, no servers of its own and no analytics. Nothing a carer writes is sent to the app's makers.
- Letters only leave the phone when the carer sends, shares or backs them up, or turns on sharing with a partner, which goes through the carer's own iCloud.
- The app reminds carers to check with you before sharing photos of a child.
If your service has rules about keeping children's information on personal phones, please let carers know. The app asks them to check.
Paying for your carers
My Chapters: Letters is a subscription, free for the first month, then £3.99 a month or £34.99 a year. Your service can pay for its carers instead: one invoice, and a code for each carer to redeem in the App Store. There's no service account, and nothing carers write is shared with us or with you. Letters still reach you by email, as above.
Email hello@mychapters.co.uk with how many carers you support.
Questions
Questions people ask
- How does a letter reach us?
- The carer sends it from their own email account as a PDF attachment. It doesn't pass through the app makers' servers.
- Do the letters replace case recording?
- No. They're written for the child to read when they're older, and don't replace the carer's usual recording or reports.
- Does the app store children's information on a server?
- No. Letters and photos are stored encrypted on the carer's iPhone, and there are no accounts, servers or analytics.
- Can our service pay for carers' subscriptions?
- Yes. Agencies and local authorities can pay on one invoice, and each carer gets a code to redeem in the App Store. Email hello@mychapters.co.uk with how many carers you support.