Summer2020-Mag-1

Take
Good Care of Me:
finding my
“ joymaker”
Finding and keeping suitable and affordable child care, for children
with or without disabilities, can be quite the task. For families of
children with challenges, this task can be incredibly frustrating.
Most child care providers (centers and family homes) will say
they’ll consider a child for enrollment if they can “meet their needs”.
However, for a variety of reasons, the child care situation doesn’t
always work out for the family.
Some families, by choice or due to lack of other options, look for
child care in their own home. While that option doesn’t involve
finding a program that meets a “special needs” child’s sometimes
complexset of circumstances; it does require finding a caregiver
with experience and training that not all caregivers have.
When parents are looking for child care, they want a program or
provider that will meet the child’s needs, and engage/develop his/her
skills and interests. For those that are looking for child care in their
own home, a computer app called Joshin may help.
Joshin was recently developed by twins Melissa Danielsen and
Melanie Fountaine, and inspired by their childhood experience
helping care for older brother Josh, who had developmental
disabilities and health issues.
Joshin is available by subscription for Private Pay and Medicaid
(building out partnerships with corporations as an employee benefit).
Joshin went live in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St Paul) area
of Minnesota in April 2019, launched in Chicago IL in August, 2019,
and in Duluth, St. Cloud and Rochester MN in December, 2019.
For more information about Joshin, please visit their website,
joshin.com and check out this reference link to the Star Tribune /
TNS | October 29, 2019 written by reporter Catherine Roberts; Twin
sisters launch app to match special needs clients with caregivers. M
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