The priority has to be the children and I feel like we started getting away from that because there was just so much demand for paperwork
– Champagne Domingo
Champagne Domingo is the center owner and director of Uni–Vision childcare, a Spanish immersion center located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They opened their doors 5 years ago, and for roughly the first 3 years of operation, they did everything on pen and paper. As a new childcare owner and director, Champagne was shocked at all the paperwork that was required, especially for centers that participate in keystone stars, and other quality rating systems.
The more stars the center achieved, the more documentation they had to show. Champagne quickly realized she had to find a way to maintain their star ratings and provide the necessary documentation, while still ensuring they were focusing their time on meaningful engagement with the children.
The Solution
To maintain their star ratings, Champagne explained that they have to show records of conferences and professional development, parent engagement, staff communication, classroom documentation, and on top of all that, developmental and health observations for each individual child. When licensing representatives would come into the center, all of these records would be on multiple pieces of paper, in multiple locations.
Champagne brought HiMama into their center to transition all of their documentation from pen and paper to HiMama. Champagne built HiMama into her educator’s schedules to make the transition as simple as possible for them. Each educator is allotted an extra 15 minutes each day to do their documentation. She explains, that with HiMama “15 minutes is all they need to upload pictures, input meals, and diapers and still be mindful of individual observations. They simply input all the information during this time and the system does the rest for them.” By transitioning to HiMama, they managed to streamline all their observations, records, and communication history into one spot. Making the lives of educators, parents, and even their licensing professionals as easy as possible.
To provide the highest quality education and care, and to continue to improve their star ratings Champagne brought Pearson assessments into their center. Pearson is an assessment feature available in HiMama to support enhanced observations, assessments, and developmental tracking of children.
Similar to many other childcare centers, Champagne’s educators are on split shifts to avoid burnout. They have a morning educator who opens the classroom, and an afternoon educator who closes the classroom. Champagne explained that without an internal communication tool, there was always worry that communication would get lost from one educator to the next.
Not only could information get lost from one educator to the next, but sometimes important paperwork could physically get taken out of the center by mistake. If an educator brought the documentation home, then got sick, there would be no record of the program planning at the center. Not only would they not be able to provide these records to their licensing representatives, but the activities themselves also would not be accessible for the other educators to take over the programming. With HiMama, they have eliminated this as a possibility entirely.
HiMama has helped create transparency of information for all educators at Uni-Vision childcare. Ensuring that no matter what, all communication and documentation is accessible to those who need it at all times.
The Result
“Educators now have more time to engage and interact with the children and provide quality education, which was my whole goal.”
Uni-Vision childcare has found a routine with HiMama that enables the educators to speed up their documentation and enhance the quality of their programming. All while making the organization and accessibility of their records as efficient and transparent as possible for their licensing representatives.
HiMama has supported Uni-Vision in achieving its goals of always striving to increase its star ratings, without sacrificing time spent with the children in deep learning.
Champagne has found such success with HiMama that she now uses HiMama as a marketing tool for new families seeking childcare.
Uni-Vision Childcare is one of many HiMama customers who have improved their center quality with HiMama!