Hi everyone – I’m Sam, cofounder at Hibi. My career has been in healthcare, but in my personal life I’ve had experience supporting children with additional needs and have seen how complex (understatement!) the system can be for parents. So I decided to build Hibi, a digital platform to support families in managing, coordinating & navigating care.

What are we trying to help with?

The experience for families following a child’s diagnosis, or often lack thereof, can be overwhelming, isolating, and complex. The system and routes to getting support are massively fragmented, with parents often left responsible for coordinating care.

Between tracking appointments, managing treatments/exercises, sharing information, and trying to navigate the health, education, and social care systems, parents often feel like they’re drowning in a sea of information.

So, what is Hibi?

Hibi is a mobile app designed specifically for parents raising children with additional needs. Our goal is to help parents feel informed and in control. Hibi aims to be a one-stop-shop for all things related to your child’s care.

Our app allows you to store important information such as medical records, therapy schedules, appointment details, and education plans. It also provides access to experts in navigating the complexities of the system, so you can get the answers and advice you need to make informed decisions about your child’s care.

Parents can easily share information in the app with healthcare providers, teachers, and other professionals involved in their child’s care. This means that everyone is on the same page, and your child is receiving the best care possible.

How do families use Hibi?

1. Share information easily. Parents are always meeting new professionals, and constantly telling the same story. With Hibi, if you’re meeting a new teacher, carer, doctor or friend and want to bring them onto the same page as you about your child, with two clicks, you can share a digital care passport to them, outlining your child’s behaviours, likes/dislikes, communication styles, any diagnoses & medications, and more. It’s totally at your discretion what to share.

• Keep track of everything. The families we work with are moving between appointments with dozens of different professionals, and each time are being asked to keep track of symptoms, behaviours, and documents. With Hibi, you can keep a log of all this, in one place, that you can pull up on your phone at a moments notice.

• Access human support. Sometimes parents just need to speak to someone who gets it. Whether that’s about EHCPs, understanding a diagnosis, or just having a chat about their own stresses, Hibi offers you the chance to speak to experts who know the SEND system and can help you navigate it.

Please join us, for free!

To date, we’ve co-designed Hibi with hundreds of families & care professionals and we’re currently testing the first version of our app with a small group of early users.

We’d love for you to join our community and help us build Hibi. Please do sign up on our website to get free, early access to Hibi. Follow us on our Instagram & Facebook to stay up to date with our progress, and share what we’re doing with anyone who might be interested.

Thanks for reading!

Photo by Naomi Shi on Pexels.