Customer Story: Open Arms Christian Academy

Who is Open Arms Christian Academy?

Open Arms Christian Academy is a faith-based early learning center in Ashburn, Virginia. Assistant director Holly Berry has been there for 18 years, and puts it simply: "My favorite thing is the families, the children, and the staff. We really are like a big family here." Carrie has spent years building relationships with the families and teachers who walk through the door every day, and she'll tell you the best part of the job is still the small stuff: a child running up for a hug, a good conversation with a teacher mid-morning, and the fact that no two days ever look the same.

Before Famly, though, running the business side of that mission meant juggling two systems that didn’t work so well.

The problem: two systems that didn't talk to each other

"My situation before is we had two different systems that we were using," Carrie said. "We were using one for billing and then one was used for our staff and families, for communication with parents, lesson planning."

Procare handled billing. Tadpoles covered the classroom side: photos, daily updates, lesson planning. Both did their jobs well enough on their own, but neither connected to the other, which meant Carrie and her team were doing the connecting manually.

The tipping point came during COVID, when Carrie started looking hard at what the center was paying for one of those systems and whether there was a better way to get the same coverage for less. "One of our systems was a lot," she said. "It was something that I went to our building department and said, can we try to find something that can meet the needs of what we need, but the cost will be lower for us."

Someone in the billing department sent her a link to Famly. She reached out, and the search for one platform to replace two began.

Why Open Arms chose Famly

Famly ticked all the boxes of what they needed, but what sold the Open Arms team were the conversations with Famly’s staff. 

"The person that I talked to was very friendly, was able to answer all my questions, and really walked us step by step for us to make a decision," Carrie said. "It was pretty easy."

Holly, who joined the calls as assistant director, still remembers the name of the rep she first connected with. "Owen was great. He really made us feel comfortable with the software, with the program. He answered all of our questions. He did meetings with our staff so that they could feel comfortable onboarding the program as well."

Carrie agreed that the deciding factor went beyond the product itself. "He [Owen] made me feel like we were a part of that family. It's been great. It was just a very easy transition."

What is onboarding like with Famly?

Switching software with a full classroom of children and a full team of teachers is not a small undertaking, so Open Arms didn't do it all at once. Famly’s flexible onboarding experience allowed Open Arms to host training sessions in stages: 

1. First, Famly’s onboarding specialist hosted multiple evening Zoom sessions with all staff to walkthrough the platform's features.
2. Then, Carrie and Holly trained their own staff in smaller one-off sessions where they could get into the nuances.
3. Finally, Carrie and Holly were transitioned out of onboarding and onto a full-time account manager who supports with any additional support and takes their feedback.

"It was a very seamless process and really didn't take us a long time to be able to understand the program," Carrie said. Holly described a similar rollout on the teaching side: staff picked from several training sessions, including some scheduled mid-day, so everyone could ask questions and get comfortable before going live.

On the classroom side, lead teacher Annabelle Holmes found the learning curve gentler than what she'd known before. "Learning how to use Famly was pretty easy. It kind of walks you through it. It's not super difficult to figure out how to add meals or add nap time, or add things, where Tadpoles was a little more intricate."

There was one real snag. Famly's earlier version of the milestone-tracker and lesson-planning tool had been built with a European curriculum in mind. The team at Open Arms worked with Famly to adapt it for US standards. "It was a little tricky in the beginning," Holly said, "but everyone picked it up fast and we just rolled it out fairly quickly."

The bigger test came from Virginia's own licensing requirements. The state requires very specific documentation, and early on, some of what Open Arms needed wasn't yet built into the platform. Carrie recalls a moment being cited by a state inspector for not logging tummy time for infants. 

"I got cited for it and I immediately called Famly and said, ‘Hey, because of the state, we need this feature.’ And I promise, within a half an hour it was on there! That was huge for us,” remembers Carrie. She was able to reach back out to the inspector who was satisfied with the new solution.

It's the kind of story that sums up how Carrie talks about the relationship overall. "When we have an idea, Famly listens to us and works with us to make that feature happen." 

(For centers navigating similar state requirements, Famly's breakdown of what's changing in Virginia licensing standards is worth a look.)

The features Open Arms can't imagine going without

Ask anyone on the Open Arms team what they'd miss most if Famly disappeared tomorrow, and the answer comes back the same way almost every time: the newsfeed.

"I would probably say the newsfeed is the way to be able to communicate with everyone, with all of our families and all of our staff," Carrie said. "It kind of runs like a Facebook page." Holly agreed without hesitation: "We use it for classrooms to stay connected to each other and for families to stay connected to our school." 

Right behind it is the messaging system. Where Open Arms used to rely on email and phone calls, families and staff can now message back and forth instantly. "It's like being able to send that communication right away, and it acts like a text message," Carrie said. For a director fielding questions from home after hours, that immediacy matters: "Let's say I'm at home and a message comes up for me, right away, it's like a text messaging system."

Every classroom at Open Arms works from a tablet, which Holly says keeps that communication moving in every direction, not just parent-facing. "They can communicate with each other. They can communicate with administration. We can communicate with them. They can look up any information on a child that they would need for the day, and they can input all of the information for the daily activities the child does."

Digital incident and accident reports have made an even bigger dent in Carrie's day-to-day. She previously had to chase down a piece of paper, get it signed, make a copy, and call a parent. Now accident reporting happens the moment a teacher logs it. "It's not a piece of paper that we have to go chase down and have it signed. It's something that if a teacher has an incident, it comes to us right away. We're looking over it to understand what's happening, and then being able to call that parent right away."

How Sidekick helps a diverse staff communicate with confidence

One feature came up again and again, described almost like a coworker: Sidekick, Famly's AI writing assistant.

"Sidekick is like our best friend. We call it a digital assistant in this building," Carrie said. Open Arms has a diverse staff, and she's candid about what that means for written communication with families: professional, careful wording doesn't come naturally to everyone, and getting it wrong can change how a message lands. "Sometimes we want to make sure that when we're communicating with our families, it's very professional. And sometimes that is a little hard for some people. So it's great to be able to put your thoughts on Sidekick and then just push that button and see what different ways it's going to come back."

Annabelle Holmes uses it for exactly that reason. "I like Sidekick because sometimes when you're having a little blank, or not really knowing how to word something, you can use Sidekick, and it will help you figure out what you're trying to say, or sometimes say it better than you can." She turns to it most for the harder conversations: "I mainly use Sidekick when I'm writing a big message to my families, or when I'm messaging families about difficult situations. Sometimes it helps me word things better than I think I could." 

For Carrie, the value is in the control it gives her team: "I can pick my option as to what my audience is, if it needs to be very professional, if it needs to be conversational. I can pick that, and it makes my day a lot better."

Holly's team leans on it just as heavily for the same reason. "It's a really great tool for our teachers to feel more confident sending messages to families in a professional way." 

How has Famly helped Open Arms Christian Academy?

Every feature that the Open Arms Christian Academy team mentioned points back to the same outcome: less time on administrative back-and-forth, more time with the children.

"Now that we have Famly, we are saving so much time rather than using multiple programs to do the same thing," Holly said.

For Carrie, that shows up in where she spends her day. "What I can do more is spend more time in the classrooms, visiting with the teachers and visiting with all the kids and my own staff," she said. "It gives me more time to do what I'm here for, to build relationships and make sure that I am here for everyone that needs me."

Annabelle feels the same shift inside the classroom. "Because Sidekick saves time, I am able to be more interactive with the children and more involved with their play and their activities."

She sees the platform from a second angle too, as a Famly parent herself. Her son attends Open Arms Christian Academy himself. The daily updates about meals, naps, and photos give her a window into her own child's day. "It makes me feel happy to know that my kid is in a loving environment and having fun, and kind of just getting a sneak peek throughout his day of what he was doing." 

On the classroom side, those same updates mean fewer repeated conversations at pickup. "They kind of already know what they ate, how much they ate, if they napped. So we don't have to tell them over again."

Would Open Arms recommend Famly to other centers?

Without hesitation. "I would absolutely recommend Famly to any other childcare providers," Holly said. "It is an all-in-one platform. It serves all of our needs here at Open Arms."

Holly's advice for centers considering the switch is just as direct: ask questions, and expect real answers. "If I had to give any advice to another childcare program that was possibly getting started with Famly, I would tell them to ask as many questions as they have to the support team," she said. "The thing that I like most about Famly support is that everyone on the team is very friendly, very helpful. They get back to you right away with any of the questions you have."

See what one connected platform could do for your center

Open Arms Christian Academy replaced two disconnected systems with one, built a stronger line to families, and got a feature added to meet a state licensing requirement in under an hour. If your team is looking to manage it all and wants a childcare software that truly works with its customers, reach out to Famly.

Book a free demo and see how Famly's newsfeed, messaging, and support could work for your center.