OnPath Develops Centralized Child Care Waiting List System
Centralized Waiting List Technology Offers Easy One-point Access to Parents and Service Providers Looking for Child Care Options.
http://www.cccf-fcsge.ca/publications/Interactionca-June10-feature-en.htm
OTTAWA - Canadian Child Care Federation. June 10, 2010. Developed by Andrew Fleck Child Care Services - a multi-service family agency in Ottawa, Child Care Information (CCI) is a regional, bilingual, provincially funded and regionally-mandated information and referral service that started in 1982. Its main purpose is to provide information and guidance on all available child care options in Ottawa and to assist parents in making informed child care choices. The program works closely with the community in the development of needed support services, the provision of statistical reports, the coordination and management of a number of interesting projects with their own level of complexity.
The inception of the Centralized Waiting List(CWL) began as a pilot project in 2001 for the francophone child care community. Parents interested in finding a French speaking licensed child care centre and/or a child care provider through a licensed agency have had the capacity to register to the CWL with the potential of selecting a maximum of nine child care centres and one licensed home child care agency that services the entire city of Ottawa by using the one application.
CCI manages the CWL's information and provides accessibility to it while the individual child care service maintains full control of its waiting list. The CWL offers one point of access; reduces the number of calls for the parent; eliminates the arduous process of putting their child's name on multiple wait lists; informs parents of the child care options; facilitates the access of children with special needs by offering them an equal chance of obtaining a licensed child care space; provides support to licensed child care services in the management of their waiting list; and identifies child care needs within the community. Initially, a total of 33 French child care services were involved. Its success changed its status from a pilot project into an ongoing service. In 2006, this service expanded in order to include all English and bilingual services. This represented an increase of 211 child care services requiring maintenance of their wait lists. Quite the challenge was waiting!
Before expanding the service to all these child care services, it was imperative to choose the appropriate Customer Relationship Management System (CRM). A CRM system manages and processes the data in order for a company to record all activities with their different relationship types: clients/customers, suppliers, partners and employees.
OnPath Business Solutions offered a customized database that allowed CCI staff to participate in the customization process in order to meet their needs. This communication tool also permits CCI staff to record their many daily activities and to convey required tasks amongst them. On Path's methodology and implementation has been truly successful. More information about their services can be found at http://www.onpath.com/.
By 2010, the database has been populated by more than 350 licensed child care services which include 250 child care centres, 87 nursery schools and 16 home child care agencies. As for the Centralized Waiting List, an overall number of more than 30,900 families and 44,900 children with active and inactive child care requests are in the system. CCI employees are able to maintain this high-volume data collection with easy manipulation of the stored information that includes detailed data and history for each of these children, parents and services.
Parents have many ways of registering their child on the Centralized Waiting List. They have the option of completing a paper form; an electronic copy; a form with the assistance of an Information Counselor by coming in person to CCI's workplace; and the online application. The online application offered in both French and English at the following website:http://www.childcareinformation.ca/, has become the most popular way of registering, with its newest feature for parents to self-edit their own files by typing in their user name and password.
Dissemination of CWL clients' information is accessible to each child care centre and home child care agency through a web portal. This tool permits them to filter, sort out the data to suit their specific needs and to communicate information regarding their potential clients in order to assist CCI in maintaining current information.
CCI prides itself for keeping up with the latest developments in the child care field and with information technology to support the delivery of high quality client-based services. For more information: Lyne Tremblay at 613-248-3605 x278 ltremblay@afchildcare.on.ca or Dan Scheunert at 613-842-4160 dan.scheunert@onpath.com