In this interview, Carolyn Smart and Rina Papageorgiou from Hawthorn Early Years in Melbourne share their journey with 1Place, transitioning from paper-based processes to a digital solution. You can find both the video recording of the interview and the full transcript below. Enjoy!

Q: Can you tell us about yourselves and your organisation?

Carolyn: I’m Carolyn Smart, the Service Director at Hawthorn Early Years. I work directly with the board on strategic planning, budgeting, and related responsibilities.

Rina: I’m Rina Papageorgiou, the Center Manager here. I handle most of the day-to-day operations with the team, including running policy implementation.
Carolyn: We’re a not-for-profit 155-place service in Melbourne, Australia. We’re probably one of the largest not-for-profits in Victoria with nine classrooms. This brings many complexities, especially around compliance and paperwork.

What challenges were you facing before implementing 1Place?

Carolyn: We were becoming quite frustrated around chasing up manual incident forms, medication forms, and accident forms. We thought we were on top of it, but at the end of the year, staff would clean out their classrooms and bring us piles of incident forms we didn’t even know about. Suddenly we’d be getting a hundred forms we had no knowledge of throughout the year. It just wasn’t manageable, nor did it ensure proper oversight.
We also had to report back to our board and be accountable for the health and safety of children and educators. This was a manual process – we had to count incident forms by hand. If we wanted to analyse timings, locations, or patterns, it would have to be done manually. With 270 families and over 200 children, we simply didn’t have time to go through that amount of paperwork.
Our aim was to minimise our paper footprint and save time for our team members. Many of our educators are from non-English speaking backgrounds and find it challenging to fill out forms or find the time to concentrate on paperwork while supervising children in the classroom.

Rina: We needed to streamline the process and stay on top of everything. With papers everywhere, we felt out of the loop. 1Place has been great because it creates accountability for the team, allows us to follow through, and helps us minimise risks moving forward.

Carolyn: Confidentiality and privacy of families and children was another major concern with manual forms. Papers would float to us, then to the filing box to be filed in enrollment records. We questioned the privacy and confidentiality of those hard copy documents.

How did you connect with 1Place as a solution?

Carolyn: I knew Paula (from 1Place) from various contexts and roles in the past. In my previous role, I was in the process of implementing 1Place for a multi-site organisation. I didn’t initially realize the platform could work for a single site. But even though we’re one location, we have multiple classrooms, so it still fits under that multi-site concept. Either Paula reached out to me or I reached out to her – somehow we connected, and she explained how it would work for a single-site service. Then we moved forward from there.

What made you decide to try 1Place?

Carolyn: The main issue was accountability in form completion. As Rina mentioned, we didn’t have oversight into what was happening. Our classrooms run very independently – we empower them to run their day and have autonomy to make decisions. We don’t want to micromanage, but as nominated supervisors, both Rina and I need assurance that compliance requirements are being met.
When I first came on board, we did compliance checks and felt things weren’t where they needed to be. Educators would say, “I don’t have time to do it now. Can I do it later?” And we’d have to insist they do it immediately. It wasn’t just one thing – it started with incident forms, but there were several issues that manual forms couldn’t address.

Rina: Having something in real-time has really helped. That’s what we were interested in – not having papers pile up until year-end, but having information in real-time so we could make immediate decisions if changes were needed across the service.

Carolyn: It was really an organisational issue. Both Rina and I like to be organised, and the paper system felt very out of control. We didn’t feel we were in control. If a parent asked about their child’s accident, we’d have to rummage through enrollment records and hope the form had been filed. If not, we’d search through piles of unfiled forms. We needed to be responsive to parents quickly and enable them to know exactly what was happening to their child during the day.

How did you implement 1Place in your centre?

Carolyn: I’m typically an all-in type of person and would have liked to implement everything at once, but Rina is more targeted and preferred taking it slow. We started with just the incident form in one or two classrooms. We asked for volunteers to trial the system so they could become 1Place champions. We planned to roll out slowly, but they actually picked it up very quickly.

Rina: I think that’s because the system is so easy to use.

Carolyn: We didn’t even need to roll it out further – staff put their hands up and asked to use it too. We had planned a slow approach, but the team embraced it and found it was a real time-saver.
The biggest change came when integration with our childcare management system became available. That transformed everything because staff no longer had to do all the data entry. They could just enter a child’s name and all the information would appear. Previously, we were getting incomplete forms because educators didn’t have easy access to birth dates, parent phone numbers, or names. Now with 1Place, certain fields are mandatory – they can’t proceed unless they’ve entered specific information.
With all the drop-down boxes, they don’t have to think about what to say. We’ve created scripts for them within the system, so they don’t have to worry about how to write professionally. The options are all there for them in drop-down menus.

Looking back, would you implement 1Place differently?

Carolyn: We went in with a plan but adapted it based on how the team responded. We’d gone through many system changes leading up to this, which is why we were extra cautious. We had just changed our time and attendance for rosters and our childcare management system database, which was a big adjustment for all teams. So we were mindful of wanting to go slowly with this step.
But we read the room and saw they found it to be a time-saver. Initially, there was some resistance – “oh, another system change” – but they quickly saw how easy it was to use. The digital forms looked exactly the same as the paper forms they were using. Lester (from 1Place) helped us ensure everything looked familiar. It wasn’t a completely different form – just digitalised.
I think we’d still take the same approach – start slow and accelerate as the team adapts. It’s not just about accommodating those who quickly embrace change, but ensuring those who struggle with digital technology understand it too. I don’t think we would have done it differently.

What improvements have you seen since implementing 1Place?

Rina: We’ve been able to do a deeper dive into how incidents are reported. Since we can see what everyone is writing on the incident forms, we can ask for more clarity. We can identify different writing styles and provide assistance if needed. We’re also focusing on behavior management strategies that educators are using with children, ensuring families can see exactly what we’re doing. Communication has been a huge benefit.

Carolyn: The ability to do deeper analysis has been invaluable. We can run reports to identify when incidents are happening, what types of incidents occur, and where they happen. The visual charts and color coding are really important. I now include these in my monthly board reports, showing summaries of all incidents by classroom and type.
This gives everyone more clarity. When working with a classroom on issues, we have actual data rather than assumptions. We can say, “The incidents are showing us this pattern – what can we do to be more proactive rather than reactive?”

We also discovered some superficial form-filling when we first started – about 30% of incidents were categorised as “other.” We asked, “What does ‘other’ actually mean?” It turned out staff were just ticking that box because it was quicker. This allowed us to clarify expectations and ensure we’re providing authentic information to families that truly reflects classroom events.
It’s even allowed us to reassess our reflections after incidents and what processes classrooms follow. Instead of just reporting “We’ll talk to the children,” we now explore why incidents happen and what strategies and techniques we’re implementing. We’re giving families better explanations about incidents, and we’re seeing fewer escalated calls to management as a result. Issues are being addressed because families are getting the information they need through the 1Place forms.

Rina: We also have a much better connection with the classrooms because we can have conversations immediately after seeing an incident report. The ability for families to sign forms online has been very user-friendly – many parents can sign from home or work rather than waiting until pickup time.

Carolyn: There’s even a wellbeing aspect. If we see a challenging incident reported, we think, “That might have been difficult for the educators.” We can go to the classroom, check on them, and ensure they have what they need. We can provide support when it’s needed rather than finding out months later that someone wasn’t coping well. It’s been a real benefit for staff wellbeing too.
Rina: It’s strengthened our community as well. When we see a family member, we can ask how their child is doing after an accident, even if it was something minor. It’s really helped build that connection.