A new app offers vetted childcare for families’ diverse needs.
Entrepreneurs Brandi B. Kenner, Ph.D., and her husband, Eudon Robinson, enjoyed a full house in Sandy Springs during the COVID-19 lockdown. But with six kids in their blended family, it was chaotic. Kenner and Robinson watched laundry pile up as they juggled working from home and taking care of their children and the household. They could have used some extra help from a home manager or nanny, but they weren’t thrilled with the tedious available options to search for someone reliable.
A year after the lockdown began, Kenner, along with her mother and cousin, began caring for her 90-yearold grandmother. They struggled to find third-party support that was a good fit for her grandma.
“When I grew up, from 6 weeks to 12 years old, I had a nanny named Catherine who was like another mother or grandmother. She was someone who was a true support system and a member of our family unit,” says Kenner, who is founder and CEO of Choice-filled Lives Network, a social change consulting organization. “People often want more than a babysitter.”
A business idea was born. Together, Kenner, a cognitive developmental psychologist with a background in early childhood education and social entrepreneurship, and Robinson, with his 30 years of expertise in corporate technology environments, envisioned a better service solution.
“We put our heads together to bring people a way to more easily find a vetted caregiver who is just the right fit for their family’s needs, values and culture,” Kenner says. “We conducted a ton of early user research and truly put the problems of our prospective users front and center when deciding to create a viable solution.”
Last August, the couple launched Village Nanny, headquartered at Buckhead’s Atlanta Tech Village. It is an app and service providing a simple way for families with diverse needs to find a vetted nanny, home manager or elderly care specialist who integrates seamlessly into their dynamic. People can post both last-minute and longer-term jobs. To attract congruent help, Village Nanny’s goal is to be intentional and explicit about what’s important to families and caregivers. While completing a profile, the app requires a detailed biography that includes information such as values, unique traditions, languages and even the foods they want to eat or everyday practices like taking shoes off when entering the home.
The founders are sticklers for safety, and prior to any caregiver being onboarded, the app requires a full national background check and driving record check through Checkr, the same platform that vets Uber drivers.
Kenner also brings the perspective of a mom who has hired many nannies and au pairs. “When my three children were still very young, their father and I divorced, and as a single mom, I needed lots of extra childcare in order to continue working and complete my Ph.D. at Emory University,” she says. From those experiences, Kenner created detailed interview guides that she initially used to vet each Village Nanny caregiver herself. She recently integrated a psychological assessment tool that she developed into the app that caregivers will need to pass to access the app’s job opportunities.
The app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and offers a 90-day free trial. It currently services metro Atlanta, but the founders plan to expand it to other cities soon.
“I am looking forward to watching Village Nanny’s organic growth and continuing to connect with more families and caregivers,” Kenner says.
VILLAGE NANNY
villagenanny.com
@village_nanny
