Village is focused on the practical aspects of childcare. We know you are not doctors or psychologists, but have real experience caring for children. Your focus is on helping parents with the day-to-day responsibilities. For a complete list of challenges, please see our How Can We Help? page.

We do not expect or require that you are able to address every challenge. We only want you to provide guidance where you feel confident and you can cover as many or as few challenges as you would like.

By Village

When you’re approved as a Village Expert, we will provide you with an initial rating against each of the challenges based on your relevant experience. We will also consider other factors like education, training, certifications, etc. This will be used to match you to families.

By Parents

Parents will be able to provide a rating after each session based on their experience and the success of your guidance. We want this to be equitable and you will also have the opportunity to provide feedback to Village on the family which will inform how we value their rating. Over time, the rating from parents will replace your rating from Village for session matching.

As a Village Expert, you can work when it is convenient for you, as frequently or infrequently as you like & are able. We will ask for your baseline availability (e.g. Mondays from 5 PM to 8:30 PM) so that we can present parents with options to pick from your schedule. This is a baseline availability and we do not expect you will always be available during these times. When parents pick a time, we will send you the family & session details to review and decide if you want to accept or decline to host the session.

We ask that all availability blocks be at least 90 minutes so you can host a full session (see “How long is a session” for more details).

We also ask that you include at least 15 minutes of buffer time between availability and your other responsibilities to account for unexpected changes in schedule (e.g. if you’re typically off work and home by 5 PM, your availability should start at 5:15 PM).

We match you based on the challenge that parents select and the age of their child, depending on your rating with the given challenge. You have the ability to decline a session if you feel the family, challenge, or time is not right for you.

Across challenges, we recommend that parents work with the same Expert so that you can continue to build on the existing relationship. However, if you are specialized in certain age ranges or challenges, it might be necessary for parents to work with a different Expert. Your rating & matching is based only the given challenge for the session, not the number of challenges that you cover so you will not be impacted if you choose to specialize.

A typical Village session is 45 minutes long. We give parents an additional 15 minutes for their first session with you so you can get to know each other. We want you to be well prepared for the session and ensure that you have time to create notes for follow-up sessions so we give you 15 minutes before & 15 minutes after the session. In total, a first session will take 90 minutes and subsequent sessions with the same family will take 75.

You will be guiding parents through a challenge based on your professional experiences & education. Before a session, you will be provided with a description of the family & more details about the particular case. We recommend that you review your experiences dealing with these challenges and put together some notes ahead of time so it is readily available to discuss. Sessions will be scheduled several days in advance so you will have time to review & we give you 15 minutes before the session to collect your thoughts.

In a Village session, parents are coming to you to learn from your experience & expertise. For many of our Experts, this is something of a new experience and requires a shift in mindset. However, we have also found it is a very rewarding & empowering experience.

Particularly in the first session with a family, you should expect to take the lead & drive the conversation. Asking questions and sharing your background is a great way to help parents feel comfortable discussing the challenge they are facing. As you get a better understanding, you can provide guidance towards a solution.

Our sessions are conversations between you & the parents and they will ask you questions about the solution. You should work with them to find the strategy that works best for their family, situation, & parenting style.

The process is iterative and we do not expect that you will find the perfect solution or address all the associated behaviors in a single session. As you continue to work with the family in subsequent sessions, you will work together to find the right approach.

We know you are not doctors or psychologists and, if any questions come up that deal with medical or mental health, you should refer parents to the correct healthcare professionals.

We do not recommend discussing multiple challenges in a single session. If the parents feel a challenge has been resolved in previous sessions and want to discuss something else, you can pivot the discussion to focus on that challenge. However, if it is a challenge outside of your experience or expertise, you should advise parents to schedule time with another Expert.

After a session, we give you another 15 minutes to close out. You have the opportunity to provide feedback on the parents and to create notes on the discussion. These notes are shared with the parents so they have a reference for what was discussed and you can use them to prepare for the next session.

We ask you to provide feedback on the parents to make sure the conversation was appropriate, they are at least attempting to follow your guidance, etc. This helps us make sure that we provide the best experience for you & for our parents and will qualify how successful parents consider your guidance to be. In other words, if your guidance is not working because the parents are not following it, that should not count against you.

Because we are providing a flexible work schedule where you can work at will, Experts are considered to be consultants and not full time employees. We will pay you directly, twice monthly, for the sessions you have hosted within that time.