Scandinavian childcare is all about fresh air, curiosity, and functional user autonomy. To tackle the high retention drop among children aged 8–12, I co-designed a vibrant, tournament-based theme framework that transforms everyday after-school care into an active, collaborative game. This tournament framework translates Scandinavian principles into an actionable system: instantly breathing new life into outdoor play, empowering staff with lightweight tools, and connecting separate Norlandia childcare facilities into a unified community once every year.
Norlandia Care Group noticed children were leaving after-school care (BSO) around age eight because the routine no longer excited them. To truly understand why, we immersed ourselves in field research across all three stakeholder groups: we ran parent deep-dives, mapped out physical facility spaces, and observed caregiver workflows for a full day. To capture the kids' genuine frustrations and dreams, we used interactive "Flight to the Future" storytelling sessions to let them map out their ultimate BSO playground.
Bringing our field research together allowed us to see the bigger picture. We mapped our insights to isolate three core problems: children desperately needed more functional autonomy, center staff felt overwhelmed by rigid activity prep, and an information mismatch lingered between corporate targets and on-site realities. This redefined our core design mission: How might we guide teachers to provide a more autonomous environment for children within Norlandia centers?
To build a scalable service framework, we brainstormed concepts using a baseline futures framework, checking our ideas directly against Norlandia's Scandinavian pillars: outdoor exploring, nature, and active curiosity.
This led to The Norlympic Games (Norlympische Spelen). We prototyped a massive multi center tournament where kids aged 8+ form their own "country" and gain true agency by voting on their weekly missions. Rather than inventing activities from scratch, the kids choose their favorite paths from an official pool of nature based, Crazy 88 style challenges sent out by a central tournament committee. These ready to go missions are clearly weighted by difficulty: easier tasks like Nature Bingo earn fewer "Nordies" (points) while wilder adventures like a Nordic Scavenger Hunt earn more, keeping the momentum high.
The tournament operations are organized by a central committee of parent volunteers and staff who design the challenges, balancing points based on difficulty. Running for a focused four to six week block during the winter, the competition kicks off with kids voting on the challenges they would like to complete that week for which they need to submit a photo or video of proof to the committee to lock in their points.
The Live Scoreboard: Updated at the start of each week, this physical dashboard tracks milestone percentages, allowing children to independently monitor their country's progress and stay updated on their progress.
The Lightweight Playbook: Packed with pre filled risk and safety templates, this guide completely takes the burden of activity planning off the staff. Instead of acting as strict supervisors, teachers can use the prelisted activities to only have execution roles, such as team captaincy, straight back to the kids.
This setup transforms caretakers into supportive coaches cheering from the sidelines. While every center wraps up the tournament with a grand celebratory outing, the highest scoring facility wins ultimate bragging rights: holding the yearly exchange trophy and getting first pick of the final grand activity.
We took our proposed solution to the stakeholders at Norlandia ran task-based walkthroughs and structured evaluation interviews with regional coordinators, child care unit managers, and educators. Testing focused on long-term facility feasibility, staff tasks, and child motivation to understand the perceived value of Norlympics in the eyes of all three stakeholders.
The positive feedback from these evaluations confirmed that the tournament framework resonates with all stakeholders. Based on these insights, we recommended Norlandia to further develop the concept, launch and test it at one location, and eventually scale the Norlympics competition across their BSOs nationwide.
The final result and Norlympics ecosystem is depicted below:
The finalized Norlympics framework successfully bridges the gaps between child autonomy, staff support, and organizational goals. By directly answering child autonomy with user-led challenge voting, teacher prep with lightweight playbooks, and structural communication with a unified regional framework, our interventions directly target the ultimate goal: keeping children engaged and excited to stay longer at the BSO.
Working on this project showed me how a user-centered service design strategy can bring high-level organizational goals and daily childcare practices closer together. By connecting operational insights with the actual needs on the floor, we helped Norlandia make their Scandinavian pedagogical vision tangible. The concept shifts the focus away from standalone, mandatory activities and introduces a shared, motivating tournament framework. Ultimately, this approach helped unlock the potential of their facilities, transforming after-school care into an active, collaborative space that genuinely celebrates the autonomy of the older child.