- In addition to interacting with children, childcare workers are burdened with reporting to parents and keeping growth records
- ChiReaff Space® is a service created to support childcare workers who are overwhelmed by their daily duties.
- In addition to supporting documentation, the system also has a child chart and development management function that assists new nursery school teachers in understanding the personality and characteristics of each child based on data from 40,000 children.
Child care workers spend time with children for working parents. It is a rewarding profession to be involved in the growth of children, but on the other hand, their hard work has been called into question. They arrive at the school earlier than the children in the morning to begin preparations, spend time with the children during the day, and after seeing the children off, a lot of paperwork awaits them. Many resign from their jobs due to the hard work, while others take their jobs home and work without pay.
ChiReaff Space®," introduced here, is a service that supports such busy childcare workers. We interviewed Ms. Akari Kawamoto of the Service Innovation Division and Ms. Naoko Sekine of the Product Service Division 2 of BIPROGY Corporation, the developer of ChiReaff Space®, which was awarded the "BabyTech® Award Japan 2021 Childcare ICT" for its attractiveness, We interviewed Ms. Akari Kawamoto of the Service Innovation Division and Ms. Naoko Sekine of the Product Service Division 2 of BIPROGY Corporation, the developer of ChiReaff Space®, to learn about its concept, development process, and future development.
(We spoke to...)
BIPROGY Corporation
Group 3, Sales Office 1, Business Department 4, Service Innovation Division
Ms. Akari Kawamoto
BIPROGY Corporation
Creative Design Department 2, Product Service Division 2
Ms. Naoko Sekine
In addition to providing operational support, the company supports the creation of educational policies based on data from 40,000 children.
Editorial:Thank you very much for your time today. Could you start by telling us about the concept of ChiReaff Space®?
Kawamoto:The name ChiReaff Space® is an acronym for the words "Child Rearing with affection. The name ChiReaff Space® is an acronym for the words "Child Rearing with affection. The service supports a "place" for child rearing with affection and a "place" where children can grow up freely.
Editorial:Thank you, can you tell us more about what makes ChiReaff Space® unique?
Kawamoto:There are three major features. The first is a variety of functions that support the day-to-day work of childcare workers. Typical functions include attendance management, parental contact, and instructional plan creation.
The second function is a developmental check and preschooler chart that shows children's growth at a glance. The ChiReaff Space® service provides a system that visually shows the development of each child in its care based on growth data from 40,000 children nationwide, making it easy to create future plans and other information.
Finally, the above functions will improve the efficiency of the daycare center's operations, allowing daycare staff to spend more time with the children, thereby improving the quality of care that the center can provide, and providing safer and more secure care for parents and their children.
Editorial:It is attractive for childcare workers to be able to simplify complicated paperwork and other tasks.
Kawamoto:That's right. Childcare workers have a tough job from morning till night. We hope that IT will cover the areas that can be covered, such as paperwork, so that they can spend more time with their children, which is where they should be spending their time. We also believe that IT will enable us to manage data centrally, which will reduce the number of operational errors.
Editorial:I see, so there is that advantage. The second part, the growth record, is unique compared to similar services.
Kawamoto:One of the challenges that new childcare workers face is that experience often plays a role in the field of childcare. Experienced childcare workers are able to draw up guidance plans and talk with parents based on their experience, but many new childcare workers find it difficult to do so.
Therefore, we thought that by being able to compare data on 40,000 children nationwide, we would be able to objectively understand the characteristics of each child and his or her strengths, allowing us to provide childcare services with more confidence.
Editorial:It is also useful to be able to see the graph visually.
Kawamoto:We have also received feedback that the ability to see a child's interests and development at a glance allows us to provide childcare that is suited to each child, and to smoothly share and hand over information to other teachers.
Sekine:We have also tried to make it easy to understand the actual input. Instead of selecting the stage of growth by text alone, the leaf icon allows the user to select from the following three levels of coloration: not colored, half colored, or fully colored. This makes it easier to choose and reduces the time required for input.
Editorial:So this system was created with the childcare worker's best interest in mind. Please let us know if there are any other points of particular interest.
Kawamoto:We have created a system that facilitates the efficient execution of the PDCA cycle (*) when childcare workers are preparing documents.
ChiReaff allows you to refer to and cite the relevant records at the touch of a button, reducing the workload without compromising the quality of the documents. ChiReaff allows us to refer to and cite the relevant records at the touch of a button, reducing the workload without sacrificing the quality of the documents.
(*) A cycle consisting of Plan (planning), Do (execution), Check (measurement and evaluation), and Action (measures and improvement). The plan is compared with the actual results to establish a course of action for the future, so that issues can be grasped and resolved.
Editorial:It is convenient where that is structured.
Sekine:Also, in the system, we create annual, monthly, and weekly instructional plans, etc., but we dare not provide a format for the overall plan, and the system allows us to save it in any format or file format.
Editorial:Why is that?
Sekine:The annual, monthly, and weekly instructional plans are important for specific connections, and as Kawamoto mentioned earlier, ChiReaff's plan format is equipped with a system of connections. But the overall plan is to create the general framework of the plan on which they are based,
Rather than preparing a format with a structure, we thought it would be easier to have the park create it in its own style, and it would be easier to come up with good ideas. On the other hand, we wanted to keep a record, so we made it possible to import any format.
Editorial:So the appeal of ChiReaff Space® is not just that it streamlines operations through IT, but that it is structured to support the growth of children and childcare workers!
Emphasis on "usability for the situation" rather than system perfection
Editorial:From here, I would like to talk about the background of the development of ChiReaff Space®. How did you come to the development of ChiReaff Space®?
Kawamoto:The service itself has been around for 6 or 7 years. At that time, the shortage of childcare workers was a problem, and we developed the system to solve the problem of long overtime hours and wages that were not commensurate with the small number of employees. Today, although the shortage of childcare workers is being resolved in some areas, more and more nurseries are introducing ChiReaff Space® to solve the problem of low retention rates due to the difficulty of the work and to improve the working style of their staff.
It all started when one of our company's initiatives to encourage internal start-ups was a project to contribute to society by putting together a team, and it all started when one of the employees' wife was a childcare worker, and she was having a hard time bringing her work home with her every day. It took us about two years to launch the service, and it was completed in July 2015.
Editorial:So that's how it happened. May I ask what was important to you in terms of system development?
Sekine:We also develop systems other than ChiReaff Space®, but there is one major difference between this system and others. We have developed systems other than ChiReaff Space®, but this one is very different from the others in that we focus on ease of use rather than perfection as a system. The overall plan I mentioned earlier was to make the system flexible and immediately practical, such as the ability to upload the data in any format you want.
We reduced the number of screen transitions and buttons as much as possible, and created the site by having nursery school teachers actually touch the site and listen to what they had to say, such as by having them hover over the screen to get an explanation of what was difficult to convey.
Editorial:I see. So your initial goal of reducing the workload of childcare workers is reflected in the system without wavering. Please let us know if you have received any feedback from the field.
Kawamoto:We have received comments such as, "It only takes about 10 minutes to complete a document that used to take more than 50 minutes," and "The billing process has become more convenient" and "Errors have been reduced.
We will continue to expand the functionality of the system to make it even more convenient.
Editorial:Thank you very much. Finally, may I ask you about the future development and goals of ChiReaff Space®?
Sekine:We hope to expand the contact book function to connect childcare workers and parents.
Kawamoto:Yes, we will make ChiReaff Space® more convenient and easier to use, and although it is still a vision for the future, we have heard that there is a barrier to connecting information on children who have graduated from preschools to elementary school teachers. We would like to eliminate such barriers to information linkage not only between kindergartens and elementary schools, but also between junior high and high schools, and create a society in which children, teachers, and parents are happier.
Editorial:Thank you very much for your time today. I am looking forward to your future developments!
After the interview
In my past interviews, I have often heard about the burdens faced by childcare workers, but hearing about this has deepened my understanding of the difficulties they face. At the same time, I felt that ChiReaff Space® is a system that was created with the childcare worker and those who want to work hard as childcare workers in mind. In particular, I felt that the solution that new childcare workers face, the ability to create developmental records, which until now had been created based on experience, while comparing them with data on 40,000 children, was a solution that came to light only because it was approached from a different industry.
ChiReaff Space® Official Website
https://www.biprogy.com/solution/lob/education/chiReaffspace/index.html
(ENDS)
Interviewing and writing:Misako Tateoka
From an IT company, she switched careers to the editing and publishing industry. Currently, I work as a freelance editor and writer, editing and writing in a wide range of fields such as travel, gourmet, and social.
What is important is "to convey valuable information to readers in an interesting and easy-to-understand manner.
He has been involved in the production of numerous magazines, including TRANSIT, FRaU, and Metro Minute.
BabyTech is always stimulated by all the services and products that I wish I had when I was a child! I am always inspired by the things I encounter at BabyTech. My hobbies are traveling, cooking, and aikido.
