Systems thinking & UX

Child Care Subsidy Apparatus

A dual-portal child care subsidy ecosystem — parent intake on one side, provider operations on the other, and a synchronized Salesforce back-office for state caseworkers. Designed so stressed families aren’t forced through irrelevant steps, and daycare centers aren’t left guessing when their next payment arrives.

UX Director 20 months Salesforce CCDS/ICCS Government
Parent my applications screen with split-card child authorization details showing pending and completed states per dependent.
Split-card dependent tracking — each child moves through verification independently.

The challenge

Legacy systems treated every family the same — a rigid 9-step intake that blocked foster and Protective Services cases with irrelevant asset checks. Providers ran on spreadsheets with no visibility into pending disbursements. Caseworkers jumped between disconnected tools, creating backlogs and payment errors that hurt both parents and daycare operators.

How I approached it

I led 42 contextual interviews, 18 card-sorting workshops, and field observations across care centers and state agency hubs. Parents, providers, and caseworkers operate on completely different frameworks — the design had to reflect that. My focus was balancing user dignity with strict compliance: fewer steps where the law allows it, clearer accountability where it doesn’t.

Wizard pruning

A rules engine evaluates eligibility at intake. Protective Services and foster tracks automatically drop asset and income discovery blocks — cutting onboarding from 9 steps to 7 and reducing completion time from 45 minutes to under 15.

Split-card dependents

Benefits are calculated per child, not per household. After master intake, each dependent gets an independent tracking module — so one sibling’s audit hold doesn’t freeze funding for the entire family.

Pre-payment attestation

Before monthly invoices generate, providers confirm each enrolled child with a Yes / No / Unsure matrix. The Unsure state isolates flagged rows without blocking the facility’s full payout — eliminating overpayments and retroactive clawbacks.

Parent intake & wizard pruning

Eligibility selector gates and the pruned 7-step Protective Services path vs. the standard 9-step low-income wizard.

Parent application household relationships step with multi-step progress sidebar and add relationship table for household members.
Guided intake wizard — household relationships within the 9-step application flow.

Split-card dependent tracker

Independent modules per child — mixed pending and active states so siblings aren’t blocked by a single audit hold.

My applications screen with child authorization detail cards showing pending and completed status per dependent.
Per-child tracking aligned with how state allocation rules actually work.

Provider triage dashboard

Metrics-driven view — Active, Expiring, Recently Expired, and Hidden authorizations filter the roster below instantly.

Provider authorizations dashboard with active, expiring, recently expired, and hidden metric cards above a filtered roster table.
Operators see what needs action before funding drops off.

Pre-payment attestation

Row-by-row monthly enrollment verification with Yes / No / Unsure radio pills before invoice submission.

Provider enrollment list with Yes, No, and Unsure attestation radio pills per child row before monthly invoice submission.
Mandatory gate that prevents state overpayments without halting entire payouts.

Caseworker audit console

11-tab Salesforce CRM with countdown alerts, due diligence checklists, and cross-portal data sync.

Salesforce ICCS application record with due diligence checklist tab showing verification status, completed dates, and assigned reviewers.
Single workspace for appeals, document review, and time-sensitive cases.
62% Faster time-to-onboard for Protective Services families
48% Reduction in support center load via contextual helpdesk forms
0 Funding lapses — expiring authorization alerts for providers

Public benefit design works when you respect how different people experience the same system — a parent under stress, a provider running on margins, and a caseworker protecting due process all need different tools connected to the same truth.