Creating Trust, Visibility, and Recognition for Informal Caregivers

Project Overview

VOUCH gives caregivers a way to make their work visible, build trust, and access better opportunities. It converts informal, unrecognised care work into a verifiable, dignified identity.

The project was awarded Best Technical Depth at Hackathon 7.0.

Problem

Caregiving and domestic work is essential yet invisible. Without a record of trust or contribution, caregivers struggle to prove experience, build reputation, or access fair opportunities.

• No portable record of work history or reliability
• Trust is rebuilt from zero with every new relationship
• Recognition and opportunity stay locked to word-of-mouth

Research

Field research with caregivers and the families who employ them revealed how trust is actually established, signalled, and lost in care relationships.

• Interviews with caregivers and employers
• Mapped how trust forms in informal work
• Identified safety, dignity, and recognition as core needs

Key Insights

• Visibility is the foundation of opportunity
• Trust must be portable to be valuable
• Dignity and safety are design requirements, not extras
• Community validation carries more weight than abstract ratings

Behavioral Forces & Strategy

VOUCH layers identity, work history, trust signals, and community validation into a single, dignified profile — designed so recognition accrues to the caregiver and travels with them.

• Make care work legible without surveilling the worker
• Let trust travel with the caregiver across relationships
• Center community recognition over anonymous ratings

Key Product Decisions

Prioritise dignity and portability — caregivers own their record, and trust follows the person, not the platform.

• Portable, caregiver-owned trust profile
• Community validation as the primary trust signal
• Privacy and safety guardrails built into visibility

User Flow

Wireframes

Final Solution

A community-centered platform where caregivers are seen, trusted, and connected to opportunity — turning invisible work into recognised, portable identity.

STAR Summary

Testing & Validation

Trust and visibility flows were checked against caregivers' real safety and dignity needs surfaced in field research.

• Testing sessions & results: To Be Added

Iteration

The trust model was refined to center community validation over abstract ratings, and to make work history portable across relationships rather than locked to a single employer.

Impact

Reflection

Designing for dignity meant constantly asking who benefits from visibility. The answer shaped every decision: the caregiver, first.