Early Childhood Development
OneSky Caregiver Training
Creating high-quality community care for the children of factory workers
Tagline
Creating high quality community care for the children of factory workers
Pitch us on your solution
OneSky is bringing high quality early childhood care and development (ECD) training to the women looking after more than 1.2 million children of factory workers in Vietnam. Our program is professionalizing a nation of childcare workers and creating nurturing and developmentally appropriate care settings for vulnerable children under the age of six living in industrial parks, thus preparing them to enter public grade schools ready to succeed and creating the conditions to break familial cycles of poverty. Once scaled in Vietnam, this program has the potential to change systems of care for millions of vulnerable children in rapidly industrializing nations across Asia.
What is the problem you are solving?
Over the past five years, in a pattern seen across much of Asia, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese families have migrated from rural villages to new industrial zones in order to find work in factories. In doing so, they leave behind extended networks of family support and rights to social services only available in their native provinces.
As a result, an informal daycare industry has emerged with as many as 49 children being looked after by one or two adults for up to 14 hours a day in home-based daycare (HBC) settings in industrial zones.
Home-based caregivers have no formal ECD training and lack the materials and support needed to safely and effectively educate young children.
Research has shown that children who attend quality early-learning programs demonstrate higher levels of school achievement and better social adjustment than those who do not have that opportunity. Additionally, early learning programs have the best chance of improving a child’s health and well-being far into adulthood. Yet, despite the proven advantages of investing in early childhood care and education interventions, challenges in implementation still remain in most developing countries.
Who are you serving?
Young women account for up to 70% of the migrant workers living in Vietnam's industrial zones and the children they bring with them to, or who are born in, industrial zones, lack the residency status for public preschool or daycare in a new province. In rare cases where high quality local private preschool spaces are available, the fees vastly outpace a factory worker’s salary. It is these women and children we seek to help.
In order to support these vulnerable families, we are creating a network of trained caregivers who support and encourage each other in improving care for children living in industrial zones. We also offer parenting training workshops so that the mothers of children being cared for by the women we train also learn best practices for supporting their child's healthy development.
OneSky's team on the ground collaborates with local government entities, trade groups and women's groups to ensure we are meeting the needs of the local community.
What is your solution?
In March 2018, OneSky launched a pilot program, with approval from the Vietnamese government, to provide training to 80 home-based care providers in a Da Nang industrial zone. These 80 providers participated in an eleven-month program focused on responsive caregiving and the importance of appropriate learning environments that support the developmental needs of young children.
The OneSky Home-Based Caregiver Training Program consists of three components: 1) Twenty classroom training sessions; 2) Bi-monthly visits by trainers to home centers to coach providers on best practices; and 3) An online learning platform that supports OneSky’s blended learning approach, providing ongoing professional development and building community amongst trainees.
OneSky will train an additional 240 home-based caregivers in 2019 and another 240 in 2020 in three industrial parks in Da Nang ultimately benefitting over 11,400 children in that province. And based on the success of our model in Da Nang, the Vietnamese government has put forth a request for us to scale our home based caregiver training program to 19 additional provinces in Vietnam, benefitting 470,000 young children living in industrial zones in those provinces.
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Where is your solution team headquartered?
Hong Kong and Da NangOur solution's stage of development:
GrowthSelect one of the below:
New application of an existing technologyDescribe what makes your solution innovative.
OneSky’s proprietary curriculum is based on global best practices in ECCE, is rooted in the educational philosophy of Reggio Emilia and evidence-based methodology supporting the core concepts of healthy brain development led by researchers at the Harvard Center on the Developing Child. Central to the intervention is establishing a strong emotional bond between the caregiver and the child and fostering age-appropriate communication and play that simulate cognitive, motor, emotional, and social learning.
Our caregiver training is delivered through a blended learning approach (the combination of in-person and online education) which increases student engagement and motivation and improve educational outcomes by providing immediate and on-demand access to learning materials while reducing costs and making better use of face-to-face time with the trainer. The OneSky approach incorporates local in-person training with access to an ongoing on-line learning community and studies have shown that this type of blended learning produces better results than either online or classroom learning alone.
Describe the core technology that your solution utilizes.
To that end we have developed a digital learning system which underpins all OneSky caregiver training. Called OneBigFamily, the system compliments and enhance sall training activities and provides immediate access to learning resources and expert support to trainees at every level.
Key elements of OneBig Family, available in local language and accessible by phone, tablet, and laptop, include:
- Password Protected Online Learning Community with moderated forums where trainees can post questions to trainers, read relevant articles and participate in forum discussions. This tool keeps professionals and trainers connected to a community, deepening their commitment and skills and providing a supportive network long after the training is completed.
- Distance Learning Courses offering professional development leading to improved individual skills and potential future certification. Courses are designed to supplement direct training and also serve as standalone distance learning courses for self-guided continuing education.
- Video Resource Library of short 3-5 minute films illustrating best practices in child-caregiver interactions revolving around various themes in child development. The visual component is especially critical for those who are illiterate.
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Why do you expect your solution to address the problem?
OneSky teaches teaches local women, communities, and governments to deliver high-quality early care programs. When at-risk children receive loving and nurturing care, they develop secure attachments, self-confidence, and resiliency – an essential foundation that will allow them to enter primary school on a level with their peer. Seeing the impact of our programs, our government partners change policies related to Early Childhood Care and Education, improve infrastructure, and increase investments, thus building better futures for future generations
A two-year external evaluation of OneSky’s program in rural China was completed in 2018 by China Development Research Foundation and Amsterdam Institute for International Development. The study indicated significant positive impact from the OneSky training approach on both caregivers. and children.
Over the years, we have gathered a vast collection of anecdotal evidence and internal assessment data that demonstrates the effectiveness of our programs. Most recently, an internal assessment of OneSky’straining of caregivers in a nursery in Mongolia used Association for Childhood Education International Global Guidelines Assessment to evaluate changes in caregivers’ knowledge, attitudes, and curriculum content in the nursery. Evaluation indicated substantial improvements in all assessment areas.
Select the key characteristics of the population your solution serves.
In which countries do you currently operate?
In which countries will you be operating within the next year?
How many people are you currently serving with your solution? How many will you be serving in one year? How about in five years?
OneSky is currently training 240 caregivers in Da Nang Province, Vietnam using the blended learning approach and OneBigFamily platform. We will train another 240 in 2020 and then begin scaling to 19 more provinces to train over 13,000 caregivers (benefitting over 400,000) children in Vietnam over the next 5 years while simultaneously launching the program in Mongolia and Myanmar where we will train thousands more caregivers to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands more children.
We developed and used this blended learning approach in China, where we have already trained 38,000 caregivers to help 177,000 children.
What are your goals within the next year and within the next five years?
Our goals in the next year are to begin scaling our training program to 2 more provinces in Vietnam while developing program plans and government partnerships to formally launch the program in Mongolia and Myanmar.
What are the barriers that currently exist for you to accomplish your goals for the next year and for the next five years?
The only barrier we've encountered thus far is funding. We need to help funders understand the benefits of a blended learning approach, using technology, to help scale training programs in developing countries.
How are you planning to overcome these barriers?
We are collecting and analysing data on trainees within our programs and are partnering with globally recognized research institutions to develop reports on the effectiveness, and cost effectiveness, of this type of training approach in a belief that the information will persuade funders to invest.
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NonprofitIf you selected other for the organization question, please explain here.
OneSky is a registered charity in the US, UK, China and Canada, and we have representative offices in Vietnam and Mongolia.
How many people work on your solution team?
102
For how many years have you been working on your solution?
4
Why are you and your team best-placed to deliver this solution?
After 20 years of working within the Chinese welfare system, educating caregivers and establishing early learning centres through a blend of in person training and technology, we know how to make the OneSky Approach work for vulnerable children and their carers and are eager to expand the approach to more countries within Asia.
With what organizations are you currently partnering, if any? How are you working with them?
In each country where we work our partner is the local government. Their buy-in is essential to the successful scaling of the OneSky approach.
What is your business model?
OneSky provides caregiver training free of charge to women in marginalized communities. At the moment, funding for our programs across Asia comes from traditional international donors. But, as we begin working more and more in newly industrialising areas, we are developing a strategy to solicit funding from corporates who benefit from the greater worker productivity and satisfaction that comes from their employees having piece of mind that their young children are being cared for by qualified caregivers while mom is working at the factory.
What is your path to financial sustainability?
At the moment, our funding comes from foundation and government grants. However, we hope to develop partnerships with both local corporates and international brands who see value in providing funding to help ensure the children of their factory workers are well cared for.
Why are you applying to Solve?
OneSky has built a blended learning platform that works well but we know could be improved with the help of an organisation with more tech knowledge and resources. We are very eager to find ways to build a robust M&E and database component into our system. We are also looking for advice on our business model as we seek a way for our solution to be finically sustainable.
What types of connections and partnerships would be most catalytic for your solution?
If you selected Other, please explain here.
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With what organizations would you like to partner, and how would you like to partner with them?
We don't have any specific partnerships in mind yet but would be open to learning from technology and strategy consultants or organizations.
If you would like to apply for the AI Innovations Prize, describe how you and your team will utilize the prize to advance your solution. If you are not already using AI in your solution, explain why it is necessary for your solution to be successful and how you plan to incorporate it.
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If you would like to apply for the Innovation for Women Prize, describe how you and your team will utilize the prize to advance your solution.
The OneSky Approach trains local women to become ECD professionals, allowing them to run their own high quality early child hood care and education business, helping young children prepare for successful entry into school and supporting the mother of these children in their efforts to obtain work that supports their family. Over the next 5 years, we intend to train over 20,000 women in developing countries in Asia via the blended learning approach and would use the Innovation for Women Prize to support that scaling.
If you would like to apply for the Innospark Ventures Prize, describe how you and your team will utilize the prize to advance your solution. If your solution utilizes data, describe how you will ensure that the data is sourced, maintained, and used ethically and responsibly.
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Solution Team
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Jenny Bowen CEO and Founder, OneSky for all children
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Morgan Lance CEO, OneSky for all children
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OneSky Caregiver Training