Meeting with CoRise March 21, 2019

Summary

  • Needs
    • Interacting with state subsidy system is a challenge, since 70% of care is provided by state program and navigating that bureaucracy
    • Had focus groups, surveys to come up with 3 prong approach
      • Revolving payment pool that provides payments in advance so providers don't have to wait 6 weeks to get paid
      • Marketing platform that connects them to families that are eligible for subsidy
        • working with parent and advocate groups for that, to help with informing parents about eligibility for subsidy
      • Shared business admin tool that allows providers to stay on top of paperwork for interacting with this and other systems
    • Focus on payment pool for first offering
      • Working with steering committee of 7 providers to design exactly what that pool will look like

  • What we should focus on
    • Marketing platform and business admin tool will both be heavily tech based
      • need to be incredibly usable, mobile friendly - we have providers that don't use email or cell phones
    • Above all else, we need the systems to talk to each other to provide insights - who needs additional support? What are trends in the industry? What services should we be providing?
    • The state would also be most unlikely to provide marketing and business admin tools - which makes a case to think more about these tools
      • Business admin tool might be a licensing agreement
      • Marketing tool might be best
  • Tools already looking at
    • Kid Kare https://www.kidkare.com/

      • Federal government - requires them to use this?

    • Pie for providers https://www.pieforproviders.com/

      • Expense tracking, eligibility alerts

      • Reminders for providers to get their paperwork on time

      • Expanding more into licensing and quality tracking

      • Interested in working with us

    • Pro Care

      • Similar to Kid Kare

    • Another one we looked into - uses voice recognition

      • Rather than having to stop caring for kids to fill out form

      • One of our providers tried it but hated it

    • On the marketing side, the biggest competitor is care.com

  • Next steps

    • find a time to identify a few other areas to ideate on - maybe governance, scheduling, other foundational pieces - Dave and Anne to discuss with the larger committee in the upcoming conference call
    • We can figure out together - how many participants, process, other themes we have been talking about

Agenda

  • We met previously to talk about the needs of CoRise is in the platform development kit
  • Get an update from CoRise
  • Talk about embedded codesign
  • Dave: In parallel with Illinois, we’re also working with a similar group in Philly - they might be in a better position to be integrated into this - focus is a bit different from Illinois - raise that as a potential opportunity 
    • They are also family childcare providers
    • Using CoRise model to make a coop there
    • Different because issues, policy environments are different
    • Services are different, but goal is to bring together stakeholders from both in May
    • So services we develop in each place can be shared

Co-Rise update

  • Fundamental vision is the same
    • Interacting with state subsidy system
    • 70% of care they provide is provided by state program that is unweildy - isolated in their home, navigating bureaucracy :( - that is funding their business
    • We’ve had surveys, focused groups, to come up with 3 pronged approach for addressing the issues they were facing with the subsidy programs
      • Working with parent and advocate groups - informing about eligbility for subsidy
      • Connects them to providers to meet parents availability
      • Expense tracking
      • Most things they buy for their home are partially deductible
      • So helping them stay on top of that through tech
      • ALso be able to tap into admin capacity of CoRise 
      • A lot of providers struggled with tech currently on the website
      • Revolving payment pool that provides payment advances so providers don’t have to wait 6 weeks to get paid for care they provide - figuring out a system to get regular biweekly payment
      • Marketing platform that connects them to families that are eligible for subsidy - providers still struggle with having empty slots - having 1 slot open can make the difference between making a living wage or not
      • Shared business admin tool that allows providers to stay on top of paperwork for interacting with this and other systems 
    • We’ve focused in on the payment pool as our first service offering
    • Working with steering committee of 7 providers to design exactly what that pool will look like
    • Now we know through codesign process with them that what they really want is to instead of providing care for entire month of march, submit billing EOM, get pay later
    • They want to provide 2 weeks of care, submit that, and get $ at beginning of the month
    • Their bills are coming in but they dont know when they’d be paid
    • We have seed capital
      • What would the process be, what info would you need, what request for provider be for a payment this month, making sure numbers work out the next month
    • In May, we’re going to reimbursing the first payments with a small group of 7 providers
      • We’re nurturing leads to help us scale this up
    • But based on our conversation with providers, issue around payment is first on people’s list 
    • Working with providers on initial bylaw creation and governance work
    • THis is a coop for licensed family childcare providers
    • Provide for children in their homes
    • Big needs
    • What has changed
    • Steering committee is still interested in the marketing platform and business supports


  • What was your process of co-design?
    • Bank accounts? Direct deposits?
    • We decided not everyone needed to be using the same thing right now - some test out direct deposit, some test out reloadable debit card
    • Structured questions discussed over conference calls and meetings
    • Based off feedback that providers gave, they wanted to come up with 6 mo action plan and brainstorm key issues to figure out, and slot them into each month
    • We’ve tackled what the timing - when in the month do you need a payment, and what kind of model can help you get that money
    • Put together a few diagrams - money flow - talked those over
    • Exciting for us - what we had initially modelled didn’t make sense - we didn’t need to advance a full month’s work of reimbursements, they wanted biweekly payments with some money at the beginning the month
    • The consistency of knowing money is going to come is more important than the amount of money
    • Also worked through what's the best way to receive payments 
    • The group decided to go by majority rules - we voted on a couple of things, people have agreed so far


  • Dana: Where should we put our focus?
    • Marketing platform and business tool are both going to be tech based
    • It can’t be emphasized enough - these tools need to be incredibly usable, mobile friendly
    • Providers in our steering committee are veterans of the industry, we have providers that don’t use cell phone, don’t use email
    • There’s a lot of work to be done in terms of what’s going to work for this group of providers
    • There are products on the market that do each of the things that we want to do - there’s ways to share payments, there’s ways to market.. Etc
    • What feels particularly necessary is how do we have all of these tools - collect data in the same place so that we can understand, based off the payments they’re requesting, based on info off their vacancies, based on business admin data… who needs additional support? What are trends in the industry? What are the services co-rise should be providing?
    • This data is incredibly valuable - both for adaptation of CoRise, but also how can this data be valuable to CoRise and the Union to advocate for the industry and share some compelling data around wages people are earning, type of work, vacancies, etc
    • Add point to utilizing this data 
    • In terms of priorities, if we look at the payments processing portal - the reality is that in a year’s time, we’re hopefully in a situ where the state enacts a different type of policy 
    • It might be the case that if we were to put a ton of infrastructure on the payment system, use that data to push the policy, and negate the payment portal
    • On the marketing and business admin side, those are - state would unlikely to ever provide
    • If they were to provide the marketing side, it would be mediocre at best and data would be owned by the state
      • They are both longer lived, and the security thing, that would make a case to think more about these tools
    • When we started this work in 2015, no one had a good back office for child care providers - market has provided certain ones, the UI isn’t good, but it may become the case that the back office thing - a licensing agreement might be best
    • So in that sense.. The marketing side of things might make sense
    • Also, how do you do group decision making with a larger group of people?
    • Kid Kare https://www.kidkare.com/
      • Federal government - requires them to use this?
    • Pie for providers https://www.pieforproviders.com/
      • Expense tracking, eligibility alerts
      • Reminders for providers to get their paperwork on time
      • Expanding more into licensing and quality tracking
      • Interested in working with us
    • Pro Care 
      • Similar to Kid Kare
    • Another one we looked into - uses voice recognition
      • Rather than having to stop caring for kids to fill out form
      • One of our providers tried it but hated it
    • We have market research that Anne can send
    • On the marketing side, the biggest competitor is care.com
      • How do we connect this to broader awareness and outreach to parents for the subsidy program
      • We have partnership with formerly our walmart, working with group in New Mexico for parent organizing - helps parents understand their eligibility for child care subsidy and the relevant regulations - uses AI but connecting parents with previously asked questions about subsidy system
    • Carina - matching platform in Washington State for home healthcare workers
      • Interested in revising platform for child care concept
    • We see potential for collab with NM org
    • Payment pool has a life of its own
    • Is there anything we could focus on?
    • Anne: 
    • Dave:
    • Michelle: can you tell me a bit about the tools you’re looking at?
    • Anne
  • Dana
    • When we have limited scope, like on this project
    • Let’s not limit our work on finding out the needs
    • Then scope - where are the overlaps with all the partners
    • Where should we focus?
    • Makes sense
    • One thing we’ve struggled with - thinking about tech solutions for family child care providers is the integration of the different systems with each other
    • Theoretically, Kid Kare and other tech - they say that sounds exciting
    • I want to make sure we’re not losing in the co-design process - making sure we’re being thoughtful about how the info we’re gathering - how it can connect to the other pieces
    • From the parent perspective (end user for marketing), looking at this - comes up with a list of providers that are close to me, these are the ones that have slots
    • Because people are looking for care before they’re born, these are the places that might have slots open
    • Right now - you get a list and you provide people and they say yeah, come do a tour, so from a user standpoint its a really terrible interface
    • We want marketing piece to pull from business and payments data - how many kids do you have, how old are they, if you have a subsidized kid, there’s a 30% chance they’re going to be gone at this time - they move
    • Position whatever we’re building so we can leverage these connections
    • What does the codesign process looks like?
    • Concerns for me
      • Group of providers - they’re donating a lot of time to talk about payment pool with us
      • They would be excited about this, but I do want to be respectful of their time
    • Our process is flexible - it is whatever works best for whatever partner we’re working with
    • If you have a process of codesign that’s working, that’s great
    • We can broaden that pool or not
    • We have some budget to compensate people
    • How we’ve done it in the past
      • Suggested the structures
      • Codesign process with partners
      • Who would be best from org to facilitate and lead
      • If you have a process that works well, we don't need to change it, or we could suggest
    • Might make sense to recruit new providers - maybe have a few overlap
    • They also need to be invested enough in CoRise to think about the tech behind it
    • About how many people?
    • Anywhere from 10-15 people, at the most 20 but it gets unmanageable at that point
    • Do you bring them together a few times?
    • We haven’t had a longer term continuity
    • We had a 2 day session with SEWA
      • Needs brainstorming
      • Design and features and function
    • Individual sessions on Cities project
    • There's a big variance in the room of how much knowledge they have about coops
    • That actually opened things up in a way I didn't expect
    • There was an amount of time where our main partner spent explaining what a coop was and why that’s useful
    • My favourite is to mix up the group every few times but have some of the same for continuity
    • Do a series of workshops
    • Get some who are tech savvy, and some who are not
    • Sharing resources?
    • Anne
      • Scheduling? Voting tools? Foundational pieces that might go into scaled coop decision making
      • Is that still part of the vision?
    • Colin
      • We’re trying to find the overlaps between Trebor’s assumptions of what might be useful, and what is actually useful on the ground
      • Maybe next step is to identify a couple of areas. Ex. marketing, voting, etc
  • Dave: What’s the timeframe?
    • Dana: over april may june 
    • From there, take what we get out and build some tools
  • Next steps
    • There’s a conference call coming up - so Anne and Dave can discuss with larger committee
    • Find a time to identify a few areas
    • How many participants
    • Process
    • We can provide a list of themes others have been talking about