Parents of SEN (Special Education Needs) children have long complained there is no one place to integrate relevant information about their neurodivergent child to allow a holistic approach to care.
A new platform in Luxembourg, Dalza, the brainchild of Robby Coelho, has recently launched to help parents of SEN children.
“Parents, educators, therapists and healthcare professionals can collaborate and communicate in real time to make sure a child receives comprehensive yet personalised and well-coordinated support,” said Coelho.
The idea is to reduce the administrative burden on parents, freeing them to focus more on the child’s wellbeing and ultimately to improve the learning and developmental outcomes for a child so they can reach their full potential.
Accessible via a website or on the Android or Apple app, it can be used on a desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile, with a user-friendly design.
More cohesion, less time form filling
Parents register, then follow simple steps to create a profile for their child and invite those responsible for providing support to join the child’s team on the platform.
The platform won a programme for start-up social impact entrepreneurs run by the Ministry for Work © Photo credit: Dalza.com
“This could be teachers, health professionals or other caregivers,” said Coelho. “They do not need to be already registered to be invited to join. Parents just provide a name and email and they will receive an electronic invitation to register and join the child’s team.”
Parents pay a fee but they first get a free trial. A free subscription of 12 months is offered to the first 150 families to register in Luxembourg. Otherwise Dalza costs €20 per month for parental subscription. However, teachers, specialists and caregivers can register for free.
The platform was created in Luxembourg after it jointly won a programme for start-up social impact entrepreneurs run by the Ministry for Work.
We are still overwhelmed and isolated, managing siloed support and care for our children
Robby Coelho
Founder of Dalza.com
Coelho, a lawyer by profession, parents a child with special educational needs and was also a child who required support at school. He said that whilst inclusion has made great leaps forward, the experience for parents has not.
“We are still overwhelmed and isolated, managing siloed support and care for our children,” he said. “Educators and healthcare professionals share similar frustrations so I wondered if technology could provide the answer to some of these challenges.”
Challenges include parents having to repeatedly provide the same information or answer the same questions on different forms in different formats, he said.
“Apart from the administrative burden of doing this and the risks of information being missed or lost, it is not updated.”
Single repository for information
Dalza affords a single repository for all information related to a child, from age, gender, history, medical records, diagnoses, educational and therapeutic assessments, behavioural observations. It also stores details of the family situation and school adjustments.
Coelho, a lawyer by profession, parents a child with special educational needs, and was also a child who required support at school © Photo credit: Dalza.com
“Up until now, parents had to act as the intermediary passing on communications from one caregiver or specialist to another, including any updates. This makes it difficult for the child’s support team to work towards common goals and at worst can lead to misdiagnosis, misunderstandings, delays and mistakes.”
Coelho recalled having to juggle countless appointments, manage mountains of paperwork and feeling alone in advocating for his child’s needs.
Traditional education tools and school administration systems, whilst effective for operational tasks, fall short in supporting SEN children, particularly beyond the classroom, he said.
Dalza, which means ‘friend’ in the Sherpa language, can work in an educational setting but also integrates the home with external therapies to provide a SEN child with unified support.
“I wanted it to be that guide or companion that so many SEN parents desperately need,” he explained.
The platform also incorporates chat, filesharing, feedback capture, tracking and notifications, to reduce the risk of miscommunication and integrate education and learning plans, therapeutic programmes or clinical interventions.
“I wanted it to be that guide or companion that so many SEN parents desperately need
Paul Coelho
Founder, Dalza.com
If a child changes treatment or medicine, the whole team can monitor and give feedback on areas like mood, appetite, sleep or other observations.
“What happens outside school is relevant to what happens inside and vice versa,” said Coelho. “How a SEN child is sleeping at night is important for a teacher to know.”
App is available in English and other languages
The platform is available in English and French, with German added in the next few months, thanks to the support of the Andre Losch Foundation which funded the translations. It also meets GDPR and other privacy and security requirements.
Parents who have already started using the platform say it has stopped them struggling with WhatsApp groups to manage and coordinate therapists and teachers and avoid being in panic mode when making sure all the relevant parties receive the necessary information in time.
One parent user commented: “The feedback we receive from all my child’s teachers is a great help in identifying triggers that can cause a meltdown.”
The platform can accommodate all children with any type of neurodivergence, learning challenges, special educational needs or disability, and a diagnosis is not required.