Meet PSF.
PSF is Provider Services Fund, a nonprofit with a mandate from the State of Oregon to increase the availability of childcare, particularly in “childcare deserts,” areas where families might have to drive 30 or more minutes to drop off a child, making childcare extremely challenging for working parents. To address this, PSF set out to promote and support small, in-home daycare providers, and came to Sembit to build an app to help those providers manage compliance, documentation, and operations. Working together, we helped refine an ambitious initial wish list into a focused, feasible MVP.
The Challenge? Compliance Was Hard.
Small daycare providers across Oregon faced complex state regulations covering safety, documentation, and compliance timelines, along with administrative burdens like tracking attendance, maintaining records, and completing continuing education. Many providers spoke English as a second language, which made dense regulatory material even harder to understand. They also needed a low-cost alternative to existing systems.
The Goal? Less Burden, More Providers.
The goal was to build an app that made it significantly easier for small daycare providers to stay compliant with state childcare regulations; document attendance, staff, visitors, and incidents; manage continuing-education credits through integrated e-learning; and keep track of grants, CACFP meals, and required recordkeeping. Ultimately, the mission was to increase the number of small daycare businesses in Oregon by reducing the administrative burden.
The Design? Multilingual From the Ground Up.
Sembit conducted a full design phase covering UI/UX design, information architecture, and wireframes and mockups. The app was designed from the ground up to be multilingual, English- and Spanish-native rather than translated after the fact, and the team even produced the mockups in Spanish to ensure the layouts could handle longer text. User research, led by market-research and strategy consultant Tina, included extensive interviews with Oregon childcare providers in both English and Spanish from November to December 2022, and those insights shaped the MVP and influenced which features were prioritized.
What We Built? EducaPro.
After design and user research, development proceeded in phases. Phase 1 of the MVP (April–May 2023) delivered provider signup and onboarding screens. Phase 2 (May–June 2023) added child screens, sibling connections, authorized-adult and staff screens, and check-in/check-out for children, visitors, and staff. Phase 3 (July–October 2023) introduced attendance logging, PDF generation of attendance logs, emailing and viewing those PDFs, compliance screens with reminders, and uploading of supporting documents. Although design led development, the process was iterative, with some building done in parallel once major flows were approved.
The team innovated in several ways: multilingual-first design in Spanish and English; decoding complex State of Oregon regulatory documentation into a manageable, structured compliance questionnaire; integrating with OBAverse, the University of Oregon's learning management system, so providers could complete their continuing education inside the app; building CACFP portal and validation tools for sponsors and providers; and delivering a web portal in addition to the mobile app.
The Results? A 5-Star Launch.
The first release was delivered on time and under budget, with no major bugs detected, and earned a 5-star rating in the App Store. PSF praised Sembit's project management, communication, and investment in the mission, describing the team as “very responsive,” “flexible,” and noting that we “helped us overcome any problems that came up.” As the client put it, “Their team has given us more than what we've asked for.”
A Mission-Driven Partnership.
Sembit supported PSF over several years, from 2022 to 2025, bringing strong communication and weekly check-ins, deep investment in their mission, and creativity and effort that went beyond the core requirements.
Conclusion
EducaPro shows how multilingual-first design and a focused MVP can turn dense regulatory requirements into a manageable experience for small childcare providers. By translating complex Oregon compliance rules into a structured questionnaire, integrating continuing education through OBAverse, and pairing the mobile app with a web portal, Sembit delivered a tool built around the real needs of the providers it serves.