In January 2018, the provincial government released its Early Learning and Child Care Action Plan, Everyone at their best… from the start: Early Learning and Child Care Action Plan/ Donnons à nos enfants une longueur d’avance…dès le départ: plan d’action pour les services de garderie éducatifs, which details how the government will make investments to transform the system.  Within Objective 3 of this action plan, government committed to ensure that parents have all the resources available to them to decide on early learning and childcare programs and services that fits their families and children’s needs. 

The vision for EECD is to establish a digital platform that will allow the department to engage citizens, support early learning and childcare operators, and equip EECD staff with the modern information and management systems necessary to support families through a childcare system that is accessible; affordable and inclusive; and within high-quality learning environments.

The Childcare Registry represents a set of digital business services that will allow operators of licensed early learning and childcare facilities to manage aspects of their facility profile, create enrolment offers to parents and manage their facility enrolment through an Operator Portal.  It will also include a parent portal that will allow the creation of child profiles and completion of an enrolment process online.  The Registry will facilitate communication and exchange of information between parents, New Brunswick Early Learning Centres, New Brunswick Early Learning Homes as well as licensed early learning and childcare facilities, and the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (EECD).

In June 2018, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (EECD) launched the Early Childhood Services Portal, now called the Parent Portal.  In November 2020, the first release of the Operator Portal took place allowing childcare operators to manage their enrolment data and to update their availability and publicize it on the Parent Portal.  In May 2021, the first release of the Educator Portal took place, which provides trained educators with a wage top up through the Wage Support Program for Early Childhood Educators.  Since then, several more releases have been done and additional releases will continue over the next years.  

Service New Brunswick (SNB) requires one (1) Programmer Analysts to assist SNB in the delivery of the Child Services Registry.

SNB will only consider up to two (2) proposals per vendor or agency. If bidding two (2) candidates, they MUST be submitted as separate proposals. If more than two (2) proposals are submitted, SNB will only consider the first two (2) proposals submitted per vendor or agency.

The Programmer Analyst will be required to:

• Work closely with Senior Systems Analysts/Business Analysts to review functional specification documents,
• Develop software according to the documented specifications,
• Unit Test and debug software,
• Demonstrate completed software to business users,
• Ensure software code is documented according to documentation standards and industry best practices,
• Interact with the SNB Business Application Services – EECD or other SNB teams as required for technology related issues and standards, and
• Report progress of work to the SNB Project Manager.

The successful proponent will be expected to produce the deliverables described in Section 11.

SNB seeks a resource that demonstrates the following Mandatory Requirements.

*Bidders must not alter any portion of the Solicitation or associated documents, with the exception of adding the information requested by the Solicitation. Bids containing clauses additional to the Solicitation that are “qualified” or “conditional” may be rejected.

Proposals that do not clearly demonstrate the capability to meet these mandatory requirements will be disqualified from further consideration.

Vendors are requested to respond to this section in the Vendor Response Matrix.

SNB seeks a resource that demonstrates the following scored requirements.

Responses to this section will be scored in accordance with the Selection Process identified in Section 13 of this Service Request.

Vendors are requested to respond to this section in the Vendor Response Matrix.

Vendors are requested to include references as per the table included within the Vendor Response Matrix.  References may be contacted to validate information provided in the Vendor’s response.  In the event a poor reference is received, or in the event references provide information that is different than the information provided in the Vendor’s response, we reserve the right to disqualify the Vendor’s response from further consideration or negatively impact the scoring for Section 4.

If SNB is unable to reach the reference(s) provided, or if references are not provided with the response, SNB reserves the right to disqualify the Vendor’s response from further consideration.

SNB reserves the right to contact references other than those provided, who are familiar with the work of the Vendor.

The successful candidate will report to the SNB Business Application Services Manager and take direction from the SNB Project Manager for project work.  The candidate will also be working collaboratively with a cross section of individuals from Service New Brunswick and Education and Early Childhood Development

The successful candidate will be required on a full-time basis for a period of 11 months (maximum of 230 working days), commencing May 5, 2025 and expiring on March 31, 2026.

SNB reserves the right to truncate the engagement, as needed. 

SNB may extend the engagement, monetarily, by 25% or 6 months, whichever is reached first, if it deems necessary.

Teleworking is an option for the successful candidate upon approval from the Project Manager and may be revoked at any time during the engagement in which case the successful candidate would be required onsite (at no additional expense to SNB) for the duration of the engagement with SNB at a location to be determined in Fredericton, NB. 

SNB reserves the right for the Project Manager to solely grant or deny the ability to telework and any schedules related to teleworking.

The successful candidate must be able to attend onsite meetings in Fredericton (with a notice of 48 hours) as required for the duration of the engagement at no additional expense to SNB.

Travel outside the city of Fredericton is not expected. If the candidate is based outside the Fredericton region, it is the vendor’s responsibility to pay for the employee’s travel to and from their place of business (or home) and the Fredericton area.  Additionally, the vendor will not charge SNB for employee travel time or expenses.

SNB will provide technology devices as required to complete the services requested in this Service Request. 

The successful candidate must deliver the following in order to successfully complete the engagement:

• Delivering and documenting new solutions or changes to existing solution as per specifications.
• Delivering solutions that integrate into/leverage existing enterprise systems.
• Troubleshooting problems and delivering timely resolutions to said problems.
• Delivering code following SNB Business Applications – EECD standards and industry best practices.
• Delivering code that has been thoroughly unit tested.