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Carer matching platform development

For childcare and home-care introduction services, nanny and carer agencies moving online, and founders launching a matching platform, who need carer onboarding with recorded checks, family requirement capture, two-way shortlisting, interviews, references, subscriptions and a safeguarding route designed around the care they introduce.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

An introduction service for nannies, childminders or home carers usually runs on a folder of carer CVs, a spreadsheet of families and a diary of interviews.

  • A family rings with a requirement: two children, after school three days a week, near a particular station, must drive.
  • The coordinator searches memory for who might fit and emails four profiles, two of which have not been available for months.
  • A carer's check certificate was seen once in person and noted as "ok" with no date, so nobody knows it has since lapsed.
  • References were taken by phone and summarised in a line; when a family asks what the referee actually said, the answer is in someone's head.

Where it gets harder

Introductions happen by forwarding phone numbers, so the service loses sight of what happened next: whether the interview took place, whether an arrangement was agreed, whether the family has quietly gone around the service.

  • Families are charged a registration fee by invoice and chased by email.
  • A safeguarding concern arrives by text to the founder's personal phone at nine in the evening, and the only record is that text.
  • For home care the same gaps carry more weight: care needs are sensitive, availability patterns are complex, and the family needs to see what has been recorded about a carer and when, not a reassuring adjective.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom carer matching build normally covers:

  • Carer onboarding with a profile of experience Qualifications and availability patterns by day and time band, where each check and certificate is recorded as supplied with a document and date, or as returned by a connected check provider, with expiry reminders
  • A family requirement profile capturing children or care needs Hours, location, must-haves and preferences, held under strict access rules
  • Matching that scores carers against the requirement on availability Distance and must-haves and lets the coordinator adjust
  • A two-way shortlist Where both the family and the carer indicate interest before an introduction is made
  • Introductions With in-platform messaging and masked contact details until both sides agree
  • Interview scheduling against carer availability
  • A reference request workflow That emails referees a structured form and records the response verbatim with a date
  • A family subscription that gates contacting carers Collected through your payment provider
  • An agreed arrangement record naming the carer The family, hours and the start date, with no payroll or payments between the parties
  • A safeguarding reporting route That creates a case visible only to a named role

How discovery works

Discovery follows one family from enquiry to arrangement with you: whether you introduce childcare, adult care or both, what checks and references you require before a profile is visible, whether families search for themselves or the coordinator proposes, how interviews are scheduled, what the subscription includes, and who receives a safeguarding report and what they do next. Each answer becomes a named stage in the scope document: onboard, require, match, shortlist, introduce, interview, reference, arrange.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Performing checks, employing or paying carers, payroll for families who employ a nanny, and care planning for regulated providers. The platform records what was supplied, returned and agreed

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A home-care introduction service wants carers with availability patterns down to morning, midday and evening calls, families whose requirements can change weekly, and a coordinator who proposes matches rather than letting families browse, with references requested automatically when a carer is shortlisted for the first time. That is a different build from a nanny platform where families browse and subscribe, and the scope document says which one is being built.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from following one family from enquiry to arrangement and one carer from application to first introduction
  • A written scope document naming each stage from onboarding to arrangement, with what is out of scope and how sensitive data is handled
  • Design of the carer profile and checks record, the family requirement form, the shortlist and introduction screens, the reference form and the safeguarding case view, on mobile for carers and families and desktop for coordinators
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours
  • Migration of carer profiles, recorded checks and references and family records from your folders or current tool, where relevant
  • Training for coordinators, verifiers and the safeguarding lead, with a short written guide for the reporting route
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access, contacts, your current carer files, family register, reference questions and the checks you require before a carer is visible.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the founder, a coordinator and the person responsible for safeguarding; the scope document, the subscription model and the milestone plan are agreed.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Clickable designs of the carer profile, the requirement form, the shortlist and introduction flow and the reference form, reviewed with two carers and a family you know.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in stages: carer onboarding and checks records first, then family requirements and matching, then shortlists, introductions, interviews and references, then subscriptions, arrangements and the safeguarding route.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    Coordinators run three real requirements through matching alongside their current method and send test reference requests to addresses you control.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Matching weights, availability bands, reference wording and the reporting route are adjusted from the review and re-checked against the scope.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Carers and families migrated, check-provider connection and subscription payments tested on accounts you control, access rules reviewed, checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    Introductions run on the new platform; optional maintenance and hosting continue under their own agreement.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Background and identity check providers, recorded as a result and date against the carer
  • Card payment providers for family subscriptions
  • Email and SMS providers for introductions, interview confirmations and reference requests
  • Calendar feeds so carers and coordinators see interviews on their own devices
  • Mapping and postcode services for distance in matching
  • E-signature providers where an arrangement letter is signed by both parties
  • Accounting software for subscription revenue

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A home-care introduction service with coordinator-led matching

The situation

A home-care introduction service wanted to stop emailing CVs and start proposing matches it could stand behind.

Why it is a custom build

This needs a custom build because coordinator-led proposal, banded availability and the automatic reference trigger are not the browse-and-subscribe model a generic platform assumes, and because access to care-need data has to be restricted by role from the start.

The scope we would propose

  • Carer availability recorded as morning, midday, afternoon and evening bands per weekday
  • Family requirements captured as care needs, call pattern, location and must-haves such as driving or a specific language, editable as needs change
  • A coordinator queue where the platform ranks carers by availability overlap and distance and the coordinator picks who to propose
  • A two-way shortlist where the carer sees an anonymised requirement and accepts before the family sees the profile
  • References requested automatically on first shortlisting, with the referee's answers stored verbatim
  • An arrangement record with hours and start date and no payment between the parties
  • A safeguarding route that opens a case visible only to the named lead, with every message on that case logged

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Childcare, adult care or both, and how different their requirement forms are
  • Family self-service browsing versus coordinator-led proposals
  • Check-provider integration and expiry tracking for carers
  • Reference workflow depth and whether referees complete a form online
  • Subscription model and the payment provider involved
  • Interview scheduling against carer availability
  • Safeguarding route and the roles who see it
  • Volume of carer files, references and family records to migrate
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Carer matching package

Carer profiles with recorded checks and availability patterns, family requirement profiles, matching, two-way shortlists, masked introductions, interview booking, reference requests, family subscriptions, an arrangement record and a safeguarding route.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Would the package do, or do we need a custom build?

A service where families subscribe, search carer profiles with recorded checks, shortlist, interview and record an arrangement is usually covered by the carer matching package through configuration. A custom build is the honest answer for coordinator-led proposals, banded availability for home care, or references triggered by workflow events. Discovery is where we tell you which.

Does the platform check carers?

No. The platform records certificates and documents as supplied by the carer and results returned by a connected check provider, each with a date and an expiry where one applies, and shows the family what was recorded and when. Deciding whether a carer may be visible, and what families are told, remains your responsibility, and the wording is designed never to imply that the platform itself has confirmed anything.

Is there any payment between families and carers?

Not on the platform. The arrangement record names the parties, the hours and the start date; pay, contracts and payroll are between the family and the carer or their own payroll provider. The only money the platform collects is the family subscription, through your payment provider, which is separate from what you pay us.

How are references handled?

The carer supplies referee details; the platform emails each referee a structured form you design, records the answers verbatim with a date, and shows the coordinator whether each reference is requested, received or overdue. The platform does not judge the reference.

Who owns the platform afterwards?

You do. Source code and your data, including carer profiles, recorded checks, references, family requirements and arrangement records, are handed over at delivery; hosting and maintenance are optional and separately agreed.

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