Dalza: A Scalable, Secure Platform for Care Coordination

Dalza is a digital platform designed to support parents of neurodivergent children by facilitating better communication among caregivers, educators, and therapists. The application offers tools for tracking and supporting children through their developmental journey.

The company and product

Dalza is a digital platform that empowers parents, educators, and healthcare professionals in care taking

The initiative was founded by Robert Coelho, a parent of a neurodivergent child who sought to create better resources and support systems for families navigating the challenges associated with neurodivergence.

Dalza was explicitly designed to empower parents of neurodivergent children by providing tools to streamline and simplify complex caregiving responsibilities. It meets the challenges of managing children’s developmental, educational, and therapeutic needs by offering a centralized platform for organizing information, coordinating care, and staying on top of the to-do list. Dalza addresses the daily tasks of neurodivergent children's parents by helping manage mountains of information, enabling better communication between care providers.

The platform offers tools for assessing, tracking, and supporting children through various developmental stages, including early recognition, key intervention, and ongoing management. Dalza’s functionalities simplify managing the unique needs of a neurodivergent child, enabling the involved caregivers to stay aligned and informed thanks to the communicational feature.

Client’s feedback

Scope and Highlights

REACT NATIVE, RUBY ON RAILS

MVP DEVELOPMENT

MOBILE & WEB APP

WSA Award

Digital Innovation with Social Impact

South Africa, Luxembourg, Portugal, Poland

Languages: English, French, German TBA

The Challenge

The main challenge of the project was building a platform that simplified care for neurodivergent children while ensuring an intuitive user experience

Parents of neurodivergent children already face a number of tasks, like managing documentation or coordinating the fragmented efforts of educators, clinicians, and therapists. To address this challenge, Dalza's creator engaged directly with all the child’s support team members to ensure the tool met the needs of everyone involved in the care ecosystem. The solution had to be multifunctional, capable of managing information and aligning the support team members while remaining user-friendly and time-efficient.

The heart of this challenge was finding the right balance: creating robust features that provided real value without overwhelming users. Dalza had to be powerful enough to handle the logistical complexities of supporting a neurodivergent child yet intuitive and lightweight enough to fit into the daily lives of parents, caregivers, and teachers. This balancing act required technological innovation and a deep empathy for the emotional, mental, and practical realities families and support teams face.

Key challenges

Developing a complex infrastructure for a centralized information hub to store and organize data and documentation.

Ensuring data protection with encryption, securing data at rest and in transit to maintain confidentiality and GDPR compliance.

Managing subscription and payment complexity across web, iOS, and Android while ensuring compliance and secure transactions.

Developing a complex infrastructure for a centralized information hub to store and organize data and documentation.

Ensuring data protection with encryption, securing data at rest and in transit to maintain confidentiality and GDPR compliance.

Managing subscription and payment complexity across web, iOS, and Android while ensuring compliance and secure transactions.

The Process

Understanding user needs was key from the start, guided by close collaboration with the client, both initiator and potential user

The design phase identified key user groups: parents and the child’s support team, which may include professional specialists, family members, and friends. These roles often overlap, allowing users to take on multiple responsibilities depending on the team. We’ve introduced the concept of the child’s space, a central hub for managing data and documents to streamline diagnosis and collaboration.

The implementation phase covered both the front end and the back end, using Ruby on Rails for the backend and React/React Native for the web and mobile versions. We've focused on key functionalities, like creating a child’s profile based on essential information, building a support team by inviting individuals involved in the child's development, sharing crucial documents and feedback, sending chat messages, and managing users’ roles and access to different sections of the child's space.

The development team built a scalable model with a robust user permissions system for precise access management. The platform supports in-app subscriptions for iOS, Android, and Stripe for the web. It integrates services like Stream (chat), Firebase (notifications), and MailJet (mailing) with encrypted data and GDPR compliance. Integrating external services like Stream (chat), Firebase (notifications), and MailJet (mailing) required careful coordination, data encryption, and GDPR compliance. The initial subscription model was replaced with a 30-day trial to boost conversions. Launching two versions, Global and a legally required Luxembourg edition, was one of the challenges we tackled. We’ve handled it by automating the release process, ensuring efficient code sharing while maintaining distinct functionalities, and implementing separate payment mechanisms for mobile and web users.

As a result, the application stands out with an intuitive onboarding experience, secure permission controls through data encryption and GDPR compliance, and a scalable AWS-based infrastructure. With modular architecture for seamless integrations, a flexible subscription model, and a well-optimized notification system, the app ensures security and a smooth user experience.

This is how we made it happen:

We adopted an iterative development process in close collaboration with the client.
We implemented a detailed permission system for managing content within the child’s space.
We built a tailored solution, as each platform requires a customized subscription flow, with subscription data kept and represented generically.
In addition to securing data at rest and in transit, the backend application encrypted the user's sensitive data and stored it as ciphertexts in the database.
For scalability and reliability, we deployed the infrastructure on AWS using Terraform and AWS Fargate.
We managed the app’s diverse functionalities using modular architecture and seamless tool integration.
We developed a smart notification system that is informative without being intrusive, keeping users engaged with key updates.

Dalza application screenshoots

Team’s voice

The Outcome

We delivered a tool that helps families better support neurodivergent children, significantly reducing the daily challenges

The project resulted in a transformative tool that empowers families to provide better support for their neurodivergent children, significantly reducing the daily challenges. With its carefully designed features, Dalza streamlines care coordination and management, enabling effective interventions and informed decisions while ensuring comprehensive continuity of care.

Dalza’s centralized platform gives parents complete control over their children’s information, ensuring data privacy and security. Parents can securely store and organize documentation related to their child’s well-being and development, eliminating the need to manage piles of physical paperwork. One of Dalza’s standout outcomes is its ability to foster real-time collaboration among all child support team members, including therapists, educators, and clinicians. The platform ensures that interventions and strategies are consistent and effective by keeping everyone updated and aligned.

The platform’s personalized support enables tailored interventions based on the child’s unique needs. It allows parents and care teams to track progress, adapt strategies, and make informed decisions, ensuring comprehensive and individualized care. The system's user-friendly, well-organized design provides families with a sense of relief and confidence, simplifying the process of managing the many aspects of neurodivergence support.

The success of this project hinged on the following factors:

Future-proof and scalable design from the start, considering the app’s long-term growth.
Proactive problem-solving enabled instant identification and immediate addressing of potential challenges.
Effective planning and communication kept all stakeholders aligned, fostering seamless collaboration.
Strong client and team commitment, including the app owner's deep involvement and the team's sense of ownership, drove a motivated and focused development process.