Dream School
Streamlining food programs at childcare facilities, across America
Dream School and Narrative help childcare professionals focus on what they do best: caring for children.
In 2020, COVID accelerated a push for unique, affordable childcare, and in response, state governments began to fund small-group childcare providers. While the government offered to subsidize these new programs, the providers—often operating out of their homes, and within thin financial margins—found themselves responsible for complying with complicated, vague safety and reporting requirements. These providers were burdened with navigating a myriad of paper forms, unresponsive, short-staffed government offices, and figuring out the complexities of online systems.
It is against this backdrop that Dream School envisioned a new product offering: a suite of solutions to support the challenges of running compliant facilities. This suite would modularly encompass different compliancy facets, focusing first on the food program. The food program module would help ensure children are served healthy diets that conform to health guidelines, and support the providers with reimbursement claims for these meals.
Challenge
Navigating complex government regulations with simplicity
Childcare providers who serve nutritious meals to children must follow rigorous, and often confusing, regulations to qualify for reimbursement.
Business Value
An opportunity to become an industry leader in childcare provider services
Dream School can lead the way in providing a comprehensive set of services for childcare providers, and streamline provider to government interactions.
User Value
Time and attention returns to the children and the relief of quicker compensation
Providers can focus their attention on providing quality care for children, and can receive remuneration quickly and accurately.
Ensuring compliance with nutritional guidelines
Childcare providers in the United States may receive financial assistance from the government for taking care of children in their homes if they meet certain requirements. Providers seeking assistance must provide nutritious meals and file reports that detail the distribution of those meals. These requirements come from a good intention to ensure children receive healthy meals. However, they can be confusing and it’s difficult for providers to track and provide evidence of compliance to meet the strict requirements.
Dream School’s Food Program solution gives providers a simple way to build their grocery lists from a list of approved items, ensuring that each ingredient meets the requirements for compliance. Providers can also choose from curated menus that are nutritious, delicious, and compliant with state guidelines. And, providers can easily edit menus to account for ingredient availability or cultural preferences and styles.
Supporting unique food preferences and allergens
Meeting the unique needs of individual children, such as food allergies and preferences, adds to the complexity of staying compliant. Providers often prepare and serve food in a chaotic environment and it can be hard to remember to document food distribution while keeping the kids fed and happy.
Dream School’s Food Program solution saves each child’s unique needs and presents them in a way that makes substitutions easy. This solution makes food tracking drop-dead simple, so feeding a group of children with diverse dietary needs is no longer a burden, but a breeze.
Dream School is committed to providing childcare providers with easy to use services, so they can effectively run their childcare programs. The new design supports that ethos.
Chad Fisher
Lead Designer
Streamlining approval and payment
The process of reimbursement can be convoluted for the state regulators, as well. They interact with multiple systems, are often short-staffed, and regularly juggle a large amount of paperwork. Additionally, the regulators find themselves acting as intermediaries between sponsors —who act as support structures for providers—and the providers themselves, which is time consuming. Regulators and program administrators are responsible for the highly emotional task of paying providers, who depend on the money to continue operating their programs.
Dream School’s Food Program solution helps providers submit their reporting in a consistent way, so regulators can quickly confirm compliance, calculate a reimbursement amount, and reimburse providers accurately.
Dream School is an excellent tool for a provider who works out of their home alone. It condenses everything you need into one app. You can easily loop in families about what children are eating and learning at your program in a matter of minutes.
Helping providers help children.
Dream School and Narrative designed the Food Program application to help providers help children, and the result is an industry-differentiated mobile app that ensures children receive nutritional meals, and providers receive the money they are owed.
