Creixent, a child neurodevelopment centre in Spain, became the first centre of its kind in the country to use Nova. Its goal: get every professional around a child to think and work together, with the family at the centre.
This story is from 2023. The screens on this page show how the same kind of work runs in Nova today.
The challenge
For 11 years, Creixent, founded and led by two entrepreneurial women, Beatriz and Alejandra, has embraced new practices based on new findings in neuroscience and neuroeducation.
“Recent studies and recommended best practices in Early Intervention and Neurodevelopment endorse a new intervention paradigm within all child environments. Considering neurodiversity at the forefront of a neuro-affirmative approach, spaces of care, and safety,”
– Beatriz Ortiz, Co-director and Co-founder of Creixent
The traditional clinical model works against that paradigm. Families bring their child to different sessions, such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy or psychology, and wait outside. Each professional, from pediatricians and social workers to psychologists, looks at the child’s needs from their own perspective. Each “issue” is treated as standalone, and the connected nature of the child’s overall development gets lost.
The gap is both outside and inside the centre. There are no protocols for formal communication between the agencies involved in a child’s development. Inside Creixent, a team of 20 people, from administration and management to intervention, takes part in the work for a single child.
“Currently, there are no protocols regulating formal communication channels or collaboration between different departments, government institutions or responsible agencies involved in a child’s development process, such as early intervention centers, pediatricians, educational institutions, social workers, etc. Each of these professionals is fundamental for the child and their family. To achieve real benefits for the children we serve, we need tools to facilitate true collaboration and our communication flow. We kept missing information and the true perspective on things. Now we put each Family and their Kid at the center and different professionals in the industry collaborate and share their perspective in real time.”
– Alejandra Silva, Director and Co-founder of Creixent
What they built
Creixent created processes and a digital workspace for collaboration among the professionals around each child. The aim was for decisions and knowledge to be shared, and for interdisciplinary work to be easy to manage, so nothing falls through the gaps.
“At the heart of our approach is collaboration to provide parents with support based on a collective perspective,” says Alejandra. She stresses transparent communication among the health, education and other professionals involved in a child’s development.
The team’s ambition is to be an interdisciplinary team in practice, not only on paper.
“Recent studies already show the success rate of new early Intervention paradigms, but it is now up to us, the professionals, to implement them successfully.”
– Alejandra Silva, Director and Co-founder of Creixent
How it runs in Nova today
Here is how a centre like Creixent would set up the same way of working in Nova now. The names in the screens are examples.
One project for each family
Spaces group projects. A centre can make a space for its families and set the space’s Project Label to “Family”, so Nova shows + Add Family everywhere in that space. Each family then gets its own project with a goal. Its sessions and tasks sit in one list with owners, progress and dates. The Decision log collects the conclusions from every session, so the whole team sees one shared history of the child’s plan.
The family takes part, not waits outside
Parents are invited to a session as collaborators. They see only the sessions they are invited to, and nothing else in the workspace. In a session they can add notes and answers to steps, upload files where a step allows it, and mark their steps complete. Collaborators do not take a seat on the plan.
Step privacy keeps the right things private. A Leader only step holds the team’s internal discussion, which the family does not see. View as collaborator shows the session exactly as the parents will see it. At the end, the session leader writes a conclusion, or uses Generate AI Conclusions to have Nova AI draft one from the notes, and chooses who it is shared with.
Goals and instructions
Visible to allBring every perspective together and agree on the next goals with the family.
Conclusions
Sessions can also hand work to each other. On the project board, connect the intake session to the case review with Send session conclusions, and the intake findings appear in the review under Previous conclusions and decisions. A regular family check-in can be made recurring and shows on the project’s Rituals tab.
The same process for every new family
When the way of working is right, save it. A single session becomes a session process with Save session process. A whole family project, with its connected sessions, becomes a multi-session process with Save multi-session process (this needs Nova Pro). Save team assignees brings back the same team members each time. The next family then starts from the same steps, with no blank page and no one missing.
You can also start from a ready-made process. Browse the session processes built by Nova, or read how processes work.
Results
With this implementation, Creixent became the first child neurodevelopment centre in Spain to use Nova. In Alejandra’s words, the centre now puts each family and their child at the centre, and different professionals collaborate and share their perspective in real time. The approach also improves Creixent’s internal efficiency and transparency.
“This step is not only a milestone for Creixent but also for the entire child neurodevelopment industry and similar sectors,”
– Rocio (Ro) Fernandez, CEO and Co-founder of Nova
“It’s incredible to see the positive effects of effective collaboration. With Nova, the Creixent team has not only saved hundreds of hours, allowing them time to grow their businesses, but they have also impacted the entire industry by making previously unthinkable things possible. For me, seeing that they now approach child development from a more holistic perspective, and that everyone involved in a child’s development works together and can leverage each other’s professional knowledge, is extraordinary.”
– Ro Fernandez
What other centres can take from it
- Organize around the family. Give each family one project, so every professional works from the same place and the same history.
- Invite parents in. Make the family a collaborator in the sessions that matter to them, instead of a few minutes of feedback at the door.
- Keep internal work private. Use leader-only steps for team discussion, and check the family’s view before you share.
- Record decisions once. Write a conclusion at the end of each session, and pass it on to the next session.
- Save what works. Turn your intake, review and check-in sessions into processes, so every new family gets the same quality of care.
See how Nova supports health and wellness professionals, or book a demo to set up your centre with an expert.