We want to use technology to make this service accessible and affordable to as many people as possible - for example being able to video chat rather than go to a physical location. But that's as far as we want to go.
Healthgrades is for finding a clinical service; we are not a health service. We often use the term coach (which isn't a perfect term but the best we have right now.) We hope it is an ongoing relationship and not just used when somethings 'going wrong.' Another way we sometimes talk about it is that it's like a really good friend who happens to have an incredible background in child development. With that in mind, we don't fall under hippa as we don't discuss medical issues, although we aim to be at hippa level regardless.
Yup - Catalin has a background in ML. We're not working on any ML stuff right now - he's just an incredible technologist! The closest I can see right now is us being able to maintain a body of knowledge similar to how most doctors use Up To Date. We could then use ML to surface the information to the coach / expert so they always have the most up to date knowledge at their finger tips.
We want to be as efficient as possible so we can support as many parents as possible, and as effective as possible so we provide the best support. But we never want to replace the direct human connection, nor to use data in any way that parents wouldn't want - we know if we lose any trust we've got nothing!
First, there are so many incredible experts in early childhood right now that - IMO - are undervalued. We have so many that want to have a home to use their skills in support of parents alongside whatever they currently do.
Second, we're investing heavily in the selection and then ongoing support and / professional development of our coaches.
Over time we will need to increase the support and development even further but for the foreseeable future we're just happy how many incredible people are out there.
A bit off-topic, but would love pointers to your top books / content on how to keep them challenged, how to steer negative behavior into something more positive, etc.
It’s less of a book than maybe an introduction to a framework he uses with his coaching clients. It’s not Hemingway but the key insight he exposed for me was that entrepreneurial parents raise kids with higher rates of depression. I don’t think he did a study to arrive at this conclusion but it was more an observation of people he knew. So he created a way for parents to engage their children using a format called the family board meeting. It’s basically a four hour one on one session doing an activity of the kids choosing without a cell phone involved. Kind of obvious but very hard to commit to when your business needs constant attention.
And if you are looking for advice, context is really important.
To directly answer though - my favorite parenting book is The Gardner and The Carpenter by Alison Gopnik
I think part of the challenge we're trying to help with is that lots of places (blogs, websites) say 'this is good for children.' Which could be true (if backed by the research) but that takes an averages approach (I love the book End of Average by Todd Rose.) It sounds a little millenial, but there is no average child and so an approach the uses averages often doesn't work.
Our experts get to know the specific family, philosophies and kids, and then bring their expertise (which includes the population scale research) to support them in a way that makes sense for them.
It's a bit like where we do population-level research on health, but we don't then expect that everyone take the same approach based on a few inputs. We still get them to talk to a doctor.