Parents with full time jobs and small children have faced some difficult hardships during the pandemic, pointing to a precarious balancing act working parents face every day.
In addition to worrying about the consequences of catching COVID, parents were also providing educational support for their children through virtual schooling. But while many children have since returned to school, parents are still desperate for a helping hand when it comes to making the best decisions for their child’s education.
To help fill those gaps, caregiving support platform Cariloop has launched a new educational service offering to provide support for parents deciding on school or childcare, based on their specific needs. The platform’s new education coaches will help parents access IEP support, find scholarship opportunities and help students through the school and college application process, among other tasks.
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“We realized that we had discovered an untapped need amongst employees in helping them navigate the complexities of the education system more effectively,” Wendy Whittington, chief care officer of Cariloop, said in a press release. “Similar to the healthcare system, the education landscape presents its own challenges and requires a deep level of expertise in understanding it.”
Cariloop already provides care givers with care coaches who help them navigate the logistics of caring for an aging parent or loved one, as well as support for children. Adin Bailey, vice president of people at Cariloop, shared in a webinar hosted by the platform last week, that she herself leaned on Cariloop‘s care coaches during the pandemic when her husband, an essential worker, was unable to help her co-parent during working hours.
“All of a sudden we had a kindergartener at home and preschooler at home who had two very different sets of needs,” Bailey said in the webinar. “One of the most empowering things for our family was our care coach letting us know that we were able to request certain things in his forms and his plans. That sounds so simple but we just didn’t know.”
Bailey tapped into her care coach for additional support when her child was diagnosed with dyslexia, and they worked together on a plan to find the best path forward, Bailey said.
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“It was really incredible when we started putting all the pieces together,” she says. “There’s no way that we would have had the plan in place without all of the support and guidance from our coach.”
The new educational coaches will provide the same full-service support for those navigating their dependent’s educational path. Cariloop’s education coaches have diverse educational backgrounds, including masters and doctoral degrees. Many have worked as guidance counselors or school social workers, making them well-versed in navigating educational challenges parents may need help managing.
The educational coaches can be accessed through Cariloop’s Center of Excellence platform, and parents will be paired with a care coach who can best assist their needs. Cariloop says that this additional support will not only help working family members stay more focused and productive at work, but will also ease a significant cost burden for working caregivers who would need to turn to educational consultants to find this help.
Taking the weight of educational decisions off a parent’s plate can help them focus on not just their child’s well-being, but their own well-being too.
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“Over the last several years, millions of working parents have been forced to become education system experts, with a vast majority of them worried about the long-term development plans for their children,” Michael Walsh, CEO of Cariloop, said in a press release. “With these new capabilities online, we are now equipped and stand ready to help provide that peace of mind to all parents, students and caregivers who have been trying to solve these challenges totally and completely alone.”
