CASE STUDY CATEGORY
Co-Creating an Onboarding Video Series with Parents for Parents, Across 10 Countries
THE CLIENT
Babilou Family, a multinational early childhood education group operating nurseries across 10 countries — the US, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the UAE, Singapore, and Colombia — serving around 55,000 families. Babilou is a mission-driven company built around a "Sustainable Education" framework, in which partnership with parents are a key pillar.
THE ASK
A new parent's initial contact with early years centers tend to be logistical — forms, schedules, drop-off times. It’s rare that the emotional side of the HUGE transition for parents is recognized or supported: guilt, anxiety, anxiety of whether their child would be well cared for. Parent feedback shows that it matters for families to hear that their mixed feelings were normal, to know who was caring for their child and how, and to feel welcome in the space. Babilou Family wanted to produce a video that would meet the emotional needs of parents, and help them feel assured and partners in care from day 1.
THE APPROACH
Angela was contracted to lead this video creation project. As a principle, Angela believes in "Nothing for Us Without Us” as a way to ensure that project deliverables are accessible, equitable and do no harm to further marginalize or hurt groups. This video needs to be co-constructed with a diverse group of parents. She started by gathering a parent advisory group spanning Babilou's 10 countries, seeking representation across genders, SES, family dynamics. These parents were involved from the very beginning- from brainstorming what to include, to structured feedback gathering on content, tone and format, and online. Live zoom sessions and online forms and forums were offered to meet various accessibility and comfort needs for providing feedback. The feedback shaped key decisions: turning one long video to three shorter ones; blending real interviews with animation, organizing the content around parents' actual questions, and most importantly, validating that this is a difficult time for parents, one filled with big and complex emotions- so they can feel seen, assured and supported. Angela wrote the scripts, interviewed guest experts, and sourced and contracted the animation partner, and worked closely with them to bring the ideas to life. Along the way, Angela led multiple rounds of feedback from parents and Babilou Leadership on each stage of animation development (visual concepts, scripts, storyboards, animation reviews), ensuring that the videos felt supportiv, informative and engaging to parents, and aligned with Babilous’ global practices.
THE RESULTS
-
55,000+ families across 10 countries are set to receive the finished series
-
Full production package delivered in about 5 months
-
Parent advisory group involved at every stage
"Our collaboration with Angela is a real bridge between research and practice on the ground. Angela's way of working is very fluid and human based, she considers always the feelings of the parents and the difficulty of the parental journey, and also her rigorous scientific grounding.”
- Laurie Catteeuw, Babilou's Education Director
