Early childhood development services make a huge impact across a child’s entire life. In Thailand, a collaboration between the Thai Health Promotion Foundation and nonprofit the Bookdance Studio Company (Bookdance) supports the government objectives in this area. Together, they deliver a family-focused project supporting low-income families. Thoughtworks Thailand partnered with Bookdance to identify a digital solution to aid the project.
Bookdance runs an initiative called the ‘Smiling Family Box’. This program assists families from three provinces through visits, a chat app, and a physical box containing developmental items for children and support tools for their caregivers.
The contents of each box are tailored to the child’s age, with categories for newborns, those up to three, and four- to eight-year-olds. The caregiver's status is also considered, with further tailoring for general parents, teen parents and intergenerational parents (grandparents or sibling carers). The toys, books, posters, letters and support guides are carefully chosen based on each child’s developmental stage.
Prior to Thoughtworks’ involvement, Bookdance was organizing the project manually. With multiple data points and criteria to juggle, administering it this way was limiting both efficacy and reach. We were brought in to advise on how digital systems could improve the organization’s management and distribution of resources.
Our research included familiarizing ourselves with demographics, box criteria, existing logistics and data points, and hearing first-hand from project leaders about their challenges. We were then able to advise Bookdance on the most suitable software for its needs. We recommended an existing solution, which now acts as a one-stop shop for the project’s data collection, analysis and management.
Balancing functionality with ease of use helps the project end-to-end. It enables the Bookdance team to quickly search for and sort data, as well as connect the dots between data-gathering forms and simple visualization tools.
The new, centralized system means Bookdance is now empowered by its data, rather than missing the insights it holds; a project member explains explains:
"For example, when we need to pull group data to organize or view subgroups, we can examine young parents' needs and see the province they reside in. This allows the project to better plan and customize to meet young parents' needs in each area."
The benefits go beyond data optimization. Boxes are more likely to be sent out on time — particularly important for the time-sensitive newborn packages. Their content can be assessed and adjusted more easily based on feedback. As children grow older, the system can help track their progress and ensure they receive the next stage of support.
Thoughtworks also supported the software rollout, delivering bi-weekly training sessions to Bookdance staff and helping iteratively shape the product as it was deployed. So far, results are promising, with high user satisfaction, and a clearer understanding of where the project can improve. Looking ahead, extra automation features will further improve operations, and there are plans to expand the pilot both in terms of the number of families supported and regions served.