She Fostered 40 Kids. Now She’s Building the First Healthcare Company Just for Them
Slice of Healthcare Team
08/25/2025
Introduction
Michelle Turner knows the foster care system inside out because she’s lived it. Now, she’s taking everything she’s learned to fix one of its biggest failures: healthcare.
What Here Now Health Actually Does
Here Now Health is a virtual healthcare company designed specifically for children and families affected by the foster care system. It delivers consistent, high-quality mental health care to kids who too often get lost in the shuffle, especially when they move placements and lose access to their therapists. The company also supports caregivers, recognizing that their stress levels are a major factor in a child’s stability.
How It All Started
Ten years ago, Turner and her husband became foster parents in Georgia. Over five years, they welcomed more than 40 children into their home and adopted four of them. Turner, already working in virtual healthcare, found herself up against a brutal reality: even with industry experience, she couldn’t get her foster kids the care they needed. Paperwork was wrong. Waitlists were months long. Therapists changed every time a child moved. It was broken.
After years of advocacy and volunteering as a court-appointed special advocate (CASA), Turner decided it was time to build the solution herself. In January, she launched Here Now Health.
“I’m not just someone who saw a market opportunity,” she said. “This is personal. I’ve lived the pain these families live every day”.
Why It Stands Out
Foster kids are automatically enrolled in Medicaid, which sounds like a win until you see the system in action. Despite 10x the medical spend, three out of four foster kids still lack access to mental health therapy. The money isn’t going toward care; it’s going toward crisis. Hospitalizations. Psychiatric holds. Residential treatment.
Here Now Health is flipping that model. Instead of reacting to emergencies, it focuses on preventative, ongoing care. And it's not just the kids who get support—caregivers do too, because when they're stable, kids are more likely to stay stable too.
Who It Helps
This is healthcare designed for the most vulnerable. Kids who bounce between homes. Teens aging out of the system. Parents who relinquish custody just to get their child access to care. And the caregivers, whether foster parents or extended family, who are often left navigating the system alone.
Turner also built the team with that mission in mind: over 75% of Here Now Health’s staff have lived experience in foster care.
Where It’s Going
The company just launched clinical services in Virginia and plans to expand to one or two more states by year’s end. Turner is focused on building a sustainable, Medicaid-first business, partnering with health plans that already cover foster youth and designing care models tailored to them.
Measuring impact is next. “Can we stabilize placements? Can we reunify families faster? Can we reduce the need for residential care?” Turner asks. “That’s the kind of change we’re here to make”.
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