Welcome to Season Seven of Edtech Insiders. The show where we cover the education technology industry in depth every week and speak to thought leaders, founders, investors, and operators in the edtech field. I'm Alex Sarlin.
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Maria Barrera is a Stanford educated engineer and is the founder and CEO of Clayful she's committed to addressing the Youth Mental Health Crisis. Born in Colombia and understanding the pressures of adversity. She leverages her experience from her pioneering role on near pods founding team to create impactful solutions in education and mental health.
Through her tireless research and collaboration with a diverse set of experts, Maria developed Clayful which offers accessible preventative mental health resources to families of all socio economic statuses. Her dedication to training a diverse mental health workforce, and establishing partnerships with schools has already impacted 1000s of students around the country. Maria Barrera, Welcome to Edtech Insiders.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
We have not talked about Clickfunnels progress in about a year and a half, we talked last time at ASU GSV in 2022. It's one of our postcards from ASU GSV. And you were just running pilots, then you are starting to get up and running. And now you have 1000s of students across the US using Clayful. You've won awards from Google, you've won awards from Fast Company, congratulations. This is a great chance to catch
up. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what playful is if they haven't heard the previous episode and what's been going on since that 2022 conference,
I can't believe until even a year and a half. It feels like a lifetime. I mean, so clay for partners with schools to provide preventative mental health coaching to every
kid. That way, they are able to build resilience in real time manage their emotions work through challenges, and really have another trusted adult to listen and vent to when you know the drama pops up and know the everyday middle school and high school life, we've been really lucky to partner with some amazing districts across the country that are focused on providing mental health services in a different way and right and really recognize that reaching kids where they're at, if that
is on their devices, reaching them in a way where they're, you know, how they're talking to each other, can make a really, really big difference and making mental health resources more accessible and more equitable at the core.
Let's talk about the equitable piece. Because I think you know, one of the things that's really interesting about clay fall is that you're really going out of your way to make sure that this type of mental health preventative resource is available for you know, families, regardless of income, and schools of all sorts of different types. Can you tell us a little bit about the equality and equity piece?
Yeah, it's really been at the core of why we started partnering with schools to begin with, right and thinking about how schools are this amazing place where kids spend a ton of their time and where kids are able to access resources that wouldn't necessarily be accessible to them without being in the school system, right? There's some really interesting stats, like students are six times more likely to complete mental health treatment in schools and in community settings. Which is
amazing, right? So we're really able to partner with schools, and have them see the value and see how it impacts the things that they care about, right, like attendance and behavioral challenges, teacher retention, academic performance, right? All of these things are very much
tied student mental health. And I feel like 85% of students say that mental health affects their academic performance, it's just makes so much sense to work with schools, and this way every student can have access, and doesn't have the burden doesn't have to fall on the family to go through the whole process and, you know, fill out those forms and interview people, right. Like it really is something that the school can do sort of
at scale. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I think that for a lot of adolescents school is their world that is like so much of what is on their minds and the social pieces of the academic pieces. And, and then, of course, as you say, the mental health undergirds and sort of is the foundation for everything that students are feeling that it definitely affects academic performance. And I think most teachers and educators you know,
see that firsthand. So tell us about some of the things that you've been You mentioned this sort of mental health crisis. And we've seen some amazing stats over the last few years, particularly after the pandemic, but even going back a decade that, you know, adolescents are going through a lot. Can you tell us about, you know, you have front row seat to this. Tell us about what you're hearing from some of the
students in schools? What types of issues and and are there some, you know, success stories or particular standout cases that you'd like to share? Yeah,
I mean, a lot of it is parallel to the stats that we see sort of being talked about day in and day out. And unfortunately, yes, like, suicide rates are really high. And suicidal ideation is really, really prevalent with this generation, I think, in a way
that hasn't been before. So the reason I started playful, like the trigger point for me, for lack of a better word, was looking at I saw this article in The New York Times about the rising suicide rates and eight year olds, and it really just broke my heart that kids that young one know what suicide is, let alone attempt at and succeed at going through with it such a
drastic, drastic measure. And I was at a conference last week talking to counselors, and they're like, Yeah, my, I have to risk assess my first graders all the time. Again,
it's tough. We've seen these crazy statistics about, you know, the most prevalent obstacle to learning for secondary students at every grade level in junior high, at least is depression and stress and anxiety from a from a, you know, youth truth survey are things like, you know, like you said, over 13% of middle school students report they have considered suicide in the last year. That's like one out of every, what, six to seven. I mean, these are really scary numbers. We don't want to ask
about super specific people. But can you tell us some of the experiences sort of like what it really is like for one of your coaches to sort of be working with a student? Yeah, I
think what's interesting, and one of the big aha moments for me and thinking about it resonates just given what I went through when I was a kid and sort of thinking about my friends. But so many of these big feelings are not necessarily because of big reasons. Yeah, right. It's the Hey, someone, my best friend didn't tag me in their Instagram post for my birthday, our, my dad's working a lot, and I haven't had a lot
of time with him. And I don't know if they care about me, or my brother's friends with someone. And they were mean to me, right? Like, there's just these quote, unquote, small things. And really, the challenge that we're trying to get through to educators are like, hey, these small things really matter. Or like these small things feel like the end of the world in a lot of ways, when you're, you know, 1315. So if we can help kids with those small things, then it can really
make all the difference. And interestingly, I think the ones that are, let's say, like the most triggering are the ones that cause the biggest turmoil internally are the ones that have the most shame attached to
them. So someone saying mean things about you, someone talking about you behind your back, even just like, you know, there's a lot of restrictive eating, like people being body shamed, like, all those things are, it's hard for you to go to someone say that, you know, in person and look him in the eye and say, like, Hey, this is what someone said about me, it's a lot easier to chat about it right into like, text back and
forth with someone. So we're able to sort of break through this, let's say, like shame barrier in a way that other mental health support aren't able to yet. And we can bridge that gap for them, right? So it's like, hey, it matters that you feeling this way. And like that was really mean that
someone said that to you. And, you know, validating them, making them feel like, hey, those things that they said, like aren't necessarily true, changing that thought process, and then helping the school realize, hey, this is happening. Let's act on it. And let's do something about it. And you know, we we've definitely had school partners that are being made aware of students that were never on their radar and are able to now support them in a way that they wouldn't have
known before. Right. There are so many kids who suffer in silence. And that don't get that support until sometimes until it's too late. And
some groups have this a lot more than others. They get sort of shamed and bullied by other students. I mean, we see that girls, there's a gender happiness gap, girls have lower happiness reporting than boys throughout school, we see LGBTQ plus students having you know, double the percentage of bullying and higher percentages of suicide and you know, fewer than half of them have adult they can talk to so some groups get it even more intensely than others. You mentioned sort of Instagram and
passing here. And I think one thing that a lot of observers and researchers have been trying to get at is what is the role of, of social media and the fact that this generation is so deeply connected with each other so Usually, but also exposed to this type of bullying or just even ignoring like, do you see a lot of cyber bullying as part of your coaching? Yeah, it's
funny. So like this generation is the most connected yet we're the most disconnected. Because we have all these tools. And yeah, a lot of it is fostering this, like fake connection or inauthentic connections. They're like Instagram versus reality is very real. And so yeah, like, I mean, cyberbullying is super
prevalent. And it just, I mean, think about when you were young, and there was a rumor in your school and the time it took for it to get across the school now that, you know, if it took a day before it takes a minute, to get into the hands of everybody, right, so the impact is a lot higher. And really, it takes away from your ability to react, right? When everybody is so focused on that thing that was just said about you, your brain automatically goes into that,
like fight or flight moment. And that's where we come in, because it's not that the student can go into the counselor's office and like, have the whole conversation and then have a day or two to react, it's like it has to happen in real time. And that's where that on demand support can really be transformational. Because it also we've also become a lot more impulsive as a society where like, we do things, and we, we let our emotions
sometimes take over. Because it's super easy to just, you know, send a text and say something mean in the moment, but we're really teaching kids like, Okay, how do we let's take a step back. Let's breathe. And let's think about what's actually going to happen if we do this thing. So our job I say, it's a kind of rewiring a lot of that, that reaction time where it's not just, hey, this trigger happens. Now I'm gonna do why. But now it's, Hey, this trigger
happens. Let me talk to playful and then figure out what's
right. It's interesting to hear your, you know, talk about the traditional resources in a school setting, which could be you know, a guidance counselor, it could be a classroom teacher, or you know, some trusted adult in a school, but at the speed of social media and the way that people sort of pile on. And, you know, just the identity politics that are so vivid in schools right now. It's almost like the school systems haven't quite sped up to the speed of technology. Yeah. And
I mean, look, I think their schools are doing their absolute best, but there's not enough mental health providers. Right. I was reading an article recently that said, we have 1/3 of the workforce that we need, right? The recommended student counselor ratio is 250. Nationally, you're at 400. Think Lee, Michigan's at 640. So there's just not enough people to support across the board. And, you know, the pandemic was rough, a lot of like, educators went through a
lot. And there is a like, empathy muscle that has been overworked over time. And, you know, I feel for that it's, we put everyone in boots, particularly educators like through the wringer. Yeah. And they're tired. And they feel like now compared to before, there's really, this gap of support that teachers can able to provide because they need to build boundaries, and they need
to protect themselves. And they need to think about like how to protect their own mental health in a way that wasn't necessarily talked about as much before. Our
whole society has been through the wringer as you say, and I think I like that metaphor of sort of our empathy muscle, and we use it and use
it. And we run out, I worked at a social work agency many years ago, and all the social workers also had their own therapists, because they would, especially after 911, for example, because they just get hit with these incredibly intense stories of abuse or death over and over again, and then they'd need, you know, people to go to and I think, you know, we've seen that very much during this pandemic
time. But it's almost a false dichotomy to say it's like, you know, school counseling versus clinical coaching, because really, your approach is rooted in collaboration. It's really about bringing all the folks together to help students. Tell us a little bit about your partnership with schools and experts and how you sort of have developed your particular approach to mental health through collaboration. You're
totally totally right. It really is an extension of the mental health team. And thinking about this is a it's like one or the other is not the right way, right? Because there are students who see a counselor on a weekly basis and then come to chat about like, Hey, I'm really having trouble, like studying for this test, because I've been procrastinating, like, how can you help me or, Hey, I have my counselor meeting in two days, but I have something I'm going to work through right now.
And it really can be this collaborative model, both for the little things right, some of these things that don't actually work. Higher clinical intervention, and for some of the bigger things, so when they come to us, we're able to really quickly bridge that gap for
support. And when a student needs does need additional support, right, and my hope with the work that we do in schools is that we're really able to one decrease counselor workload by taking some of those smaller things, helping with prevention, right? I mean, the metaphor I typically use is that I counselors are firefighters, and they spend so much of their time firefighting, that it's hard to advocate for fire prevention until I do fire prevention as
much as they want to. So our job is like how do we give every kid a tiny fire extinguisher when they have a fire inside of them or in their friends, they're able to help extinguish I like think of playful as another extinguisher right? And that way, our firefighters aren't needing to fight as many fires and or can focus on the fires that need them the most, right? There's like triaging of care that I think is really, really
important. And that's why the courts not about just like throwing more people at the problem, but rather, how do we rethink the model of support holistically, and the way that we've thought about, you know, diabetes prevention, or like, heart failure prevention, like, let's think about suicide in sort of gun safety prevention in a way that we're starting to read, the conversation is happening a lot more. But it's not just about suicide awareness. But I tried to like how do we give kids healthy
coping skills? And like, how do we help them realize that just because someone said something about them on Instagram doesn't mean it's true.
I mean, I love this tiny fire extinguisher metaphor it especially because, you know, we've been talking about social media, but kids in school these days, even relatively young kids very often have their phones with them at
all times every moment. And the idea that if something were to happen, that creates, you know, this fire inside them, or really, really stimulates that fight or flight or that fear, or if it just bubbles up from things that have happened over the last three weeks, you know, it's just at their fingertips, literally, I mean, just the fact that they have access to a coach all the time, a live coach, potentially, I imagine changes their whole view of you know, what seeking mental health
support, you know, even means, a lot of schools
now are banning devices all throughout, right, you either have like a copy that you put your phone into, or there's less, let's say, friendliness toward devices, because I understand that can be a distraction in the day to day, but what we've seen schools do even in a classroom is just have a little playful corner, and students that you're trying to teach trigonometry, but a student's dysregulated they're not gonna get the unit circle going through them when they're
thinking about something else, right? They're going through a breakup, they're fighting with their best friend, like, they need time to process that. And so teachers have been saying like, Okay, well just take a moment go to the playful corner, like, out and on a school issued device, right? Because they don't need to have their phone like also be going on tick tock, but they also don't need to walk
into a counselor's office. And while the counselor might be talking to someone else, and wait, right, like, there's, there's like logistical and operational challenges to all that. So you know, if it escalates to a level of need, where the counselor is needed, great, then the counselor can come in. But some of those things are just like, hey, maybe sometimes you just need to talk it out, vent a little, and then get back to a regulated state.
I love that. And it didn't even occur to me that yes, kids have phones. But of course, in school, in many cases, in many classes, and many post schools, they don't have it. So it sounds like you've already obviously seen that in many cases. And there's already a really interesting solution. I
love the idea. To some extent, you're showing that you have an issue if you have if you stand up and go into the corner, but at the same time, I mean, how amazing is it that it's right there accessible, you know, during class, it's just such a completely different version of it literally puts mental health front and center in the school in a way that it just has never been.
And frankly, that's what students are asking for. Right? Like, they understand that there's a stigma, they understand that there's still a lack of awareness, and they want more resources, they want it to be front and center. So if they have an issue, then it's okay to talk about it. And it's okay to say, Hey, I'm gonna actually do this. So it's what kids need, because that is what's going to help us again, going back to that shame piece that we were talking about before, decrease
the shame. It's like, oh, actually, just because I'm having a hard day, I'd have to feel bad about it. I can get help and talk about it and maybe get a tool or two to work through it. And now I'm stronger because of it, right? It's really like this, this whole resilience piece is key. And if we keep on hiding that we struggle, which is literally the most human thing possible, then we're not recognizing that Do we
need to grow? And that there's ways that we can get better and become more resilient ourselves? Yeah,
I really respect that idea of sort of normalization, and reducing the stigma of seeking help as a sort of culture. Let me ask you a business question. Because you've been now, you know, growing the business, working with districts growing, you know, the playful audience or the colorful user base for quite a while. But I would imagine mental health support, especially this, you know, preventative mental health coaching may not always be the easiest thing to explain to
districts. And moreover, because you're dealing with extra extra extra sensitive information, even beyond regular student, you know, personally identifiable information, it's probably not something you can sort of offer a freemium model for, or do like product lead growth, where it's like, Hey, everybody, try three free sessions of coaching and then buy it, it's just, there's probably a whole different kinds of growth model, you might not be able to have an individual
teacher adopted the way that other edtech tools sometimes do. Tell us about your growth strategy. And sort of how you've been building your customer base with a slightly new type of product. And with one that's, that's so highly regulated,
it really is mean coming from Nearpod. It's a very, very different type of approach. And I own the teacher business there and really was sort of on the front lines of saying, like, teachers, here's this really cool platform, you're like it, and then because you like it, your school is gonna buy and your district is gonna buy. And that was, you know, now it sounds simple. It was not simple at the time, but the playbook was one that we really pioneered in education.
And at the beginning, like, Okay, how do we do that here. And what I quickly realized is, in a way that, you know, Nearpod, was about innovation and showing these like cool features on how to use devices in the classroom, we really are about trust, right, and like, districts need to trust that their students are in good hands. And that we will, if something comes up, there's a safety concern that we will do the right thing, and we will tell them, and they will be able
to act on it. And that's where we focus a lot of our effort and building those protocols, making sure that our coaches are incredible humans, like building all the safety, sort of, you know, boundaries around every chat is monitored by AI and by human, every conversation that is escalated is is supervised by a clinical licensed person who can support in that conversation, right? Like those pieces are so so so important, even though it's not, you know, 99% of our conversations are not
about that. It's those pieces that keep districts up at night, right. And that's why having a freemium model is, you know, not possible yet. Because it really takes time to make sure that we're doing the right thing by students and by districts in that what's transformational at the same time, right. Because the moment something like that happens, that's a life that you
saved. And that's really where I mean, obviously, helping kids with prevention, and everything is key, because we're making sure that kids don't get to that breaking point. But for those that are already there, being able to support them is really, you know, the gift on a daily basis.
Yeah, I mean, just speaking of that idea of a breaking point, I'm curious, you know, as you have gone around the country, speaking to district leaders and academic leaders of all kinds, I would imagine that there's sort of a few different groups, and one is probably a group that has seen some real tragedies very close up within their school or their district, or, you know, the
neighboring school. Do you feel like there's a difference between the people who sort of have been through this type of experience and those who, you know, know, it's possible, but they don't know how probable and they're sort of waiting to see. Yeah,
I do think it is so mean, earlier, you asked like what kind of districts we were working with and feel like on a broad scale, it's, I would fall into two categories, one, those tutor that have gone through something and just know they need to do something different, either, like the existing processes, or existing solutions
just aren't working. And they're ready to innovate and think about technology being a potential pathway to helping them reach more students and do things again, in a different way. And then the others are really one set, or we work with a lot of rural communities. Because it turns out that, you know, there's not enough mental health counselors that we've
talked about before. And when you're in rural community, that's where it takes 45 minutes to an hour and a half to get to a mental health professional. You need to think about leveraging technology in a way to support students because there's no other way right? You
can't clone people. So for With those two in mind, there is a difference in those who have like been through it or have sort of experienced something close more closely in their community, because you're willing to act faster and you're, you don't want to lose another student. Right? You don't want that to happen against, you're willing to do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn't happen. And it's obviously a really heavy
conversation. And typically, when we start working with schools, right away, we get, you know, three to five escalations in the first couple of days. Because students recognize like, this is another resource. And I can like know, if I've been intimidated by walking into the counselor's office, or if I just haven't felt like, I needed air, I didn't really accept it to myself that I needed it, it opens up another door, and a lot of kids open up in that moment.
And it's beautiful to watch, because they recognize that by saying something, they're gonna get that support. And we're able to bridge that gap really, really quickly. Yeah.
When you mentioned these two types of districts, people who have had these experiences that really make them realize they need to step up their their mental health support significantly, and districts that have, you know, acute lack of personnel, it feels like, you know, it would make sense that these are the sort of first adopters who are really ahead of the curve on this type of technology, enhanced preventative mental health care, as you're going from that sort of early adopters
to that big middle of the many, many, I mean, it's not like these anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, or the types of problems, you're talking about breakups and, you know, best friends bullying each other, you know, are only happening in those districts, they're obviously happening in every school in the country. How are you looking to sort of burst through and expand this concept to people who may not have that sort of Top of Mind need?
Well, I'm excited to share that we are actually expanding our sales team. So we've learned so much in the last year or two years and what it takes to get this in front of our school leaders. And now we're able to scale those efforts across the country. Really? Yeah. So we're really looking for humans who are excited about this work and willing to do things a little bit different, but like, there's no specific playbook that we can follow, because so much of this
isn't brand new. So we're learning on the go and looking for some sales leaders that are ready to learn with us and curious and yeah, want to have an impact? Yeah,
you heard it here. First, if you are a mission driven person who's in sales and marketing, who wants to support vulnerable students all around the country, or if you know, somebody like that clay foil is looking to expand significantly over this next year. And I'm excited to hear
that. So let me ask you a little bit about mental health metrics, because this, you mentioned a couple in passing before that, you're saying, you know, schools have things that they want or need to accomplish, that there's the of course, we don't want our students to be miserable. But there's also actually sort of core school metrics that they are responsible for, that
they're paying attention to. And I'm curious how you sort of map some of the mental health supports that you are providing to some of the sort of traditional educational metrics that schools have been tracking, you know, forever?
Yeah, it's a great question, we get a lot. It's at the core, we focus first on getting feedback from students, everything is student driven, we're designing this for students, and we want to make sure that it's meeting their needs, right or point of views, like if it meets student needs, and it makes them feel better than everything else will fall into place. So that's where we
started. And I'm really proud that we're at 4.7 out of five stars, you know, kind of like our Yelp review, because of anyone worth there out there works with middle school and high schoolers, you know, the, you know, they're ruthless and their feedback, they will not hold back. And, you know, interestingly, of course, there's a lot of talk about AI. And maybe we'll talk about that a bit. But we also get qualitative feedback from students. And the thing that comes up the most is, thank you
for spending time with me. And this idea of like holding space for them, like what that means for a kid. There's something that I didn't know would be kind of at the crux of the quote unquote, value proposition for students. And one that because we're getting all this qualitative feedback, we're able to parse through and that's been a great learning for us and something to communicate to our
school leaders to. Beyond that, we also look at Yeah, some of those traditional things that we talked about earlier, even just like attendance and decreasing behavioral challenge. As you know, teacher retention is unfortunately at an all time low. And a lot of that is due to the behavior challenges that kids are bringing into In the classroom because they're feeling dysregulated, because their coping mechanisms aren't
there. So where by giving teachers and students and other tools to help them regulate, the goal is to help increase actually that teacher retention piece, as well. And then, of course, we know we talk about academic performance, we we track, we use the PHQ. Four, which is a clinical measure for anxiety and depression, as sort of a screener up front to help schools on their standards. Where are you at in terms of the student body and how they're feeling? And then over time
track? Okay, how does playful and how did the additional initiatives support that work? Interestingly, we find that once you start putting more initiatives to mental health, there's more awareness. So people are like, Oh, wait, I am feeling a little bit off. So again, there's a bump initially, that kind of causes that. That's why we see escalations up front. And that's where we see more kids coming with acute needs at
the beginning. And then over time, we're able to get get more preventative work.
Yeah, yeah, makes sense. It's put out those fires, the active fires first before focusing on prevention, but I'm sure it makes a huge difference. And it I mean, it does surprise me in some ways, but it makes sense to hear that students are reaching out and thanking the coaches and thanking grateful itself as a service for just sort of being
there for them. And because, I mean, I remember, adolescence is a really tricky time, you're overwhelmed with hormones, you're completely, you know, socially obsessed, but you often don't have very many confidence, you often don't have that many people you trust of any kind.
And the idea of having a service that is there for you, that is there to help make sure that you're alright, and it's just always on call, you know, we could take for granted that it's just there was very likely, you know, no other option for a lot of the students that you serve. Well,
and at the core, it's not just that you may not have someone, it's that in every relationship in your life, you have, you know, I'm gonna say like a reputation to uphold, right, or, you know, I think about when I was in middle school, in high school, and the cool you have your friends, but, you know, if you're trying to be cool, if you're trying to be you have a different persona, and even more kids nowadays, with like their tick tock and social brands, that it's hard to be
vulnerable with someone, it's hard to say, Okay, I'm actually struggling with this when you want to be the cool friend, or, you know, I think about my relationship with my family and my mom, like, we came to the US when I was 10. And she left her whole family behind. And it was
really hard for her. And I wasn't gonna say like, Hey, Mom, by the way, I'm like really struggling with XYZ, because I just saw her literally give up her whole life, to come to a country to give me a better life, like, it almost feels selfish in a way to put that burden on your family. And that's what we see all the time.
And kids like, I don't want my parents to know, or I don't want them to be aware that like I'm feeling this way, not because I don't think they'll care for me, but rather, because they feel guilty about feeling that way.
And we end up role playing and talking through that a lot more and challenging those assumptions, so that they do break through those feelings and get the support that they need, or even just like, you know, have a conversation with their family, that's going to help repair some of that a lot of the work that we do actually is role playing to have conversations with families and trusted adults, which is really, really important.
For sure. So you just mentioned sort of in passing some of your background, but I'd love to ask a little bit about it specifically, because, you know, you were a Stanford educated engineer. So coming from the engineering side of the house, you also were born in Colombia and came to the US at 10. I may be missing a step in there. But I believe so. You're a female founder, you're a Latin founder, you have a lot of interesting personal
experiences. And obviously, you know, you like many have had things that you struggled with in adolescence. Oh, and you are on the founding team of Nearpod, which you've mentioned, which is, you know, big success was sold to Renaissance Learning a few years ago, tell us about how all these disparate experiences have come together to sort of shape your perspective when it comes to playful. Yeah,
so I often get the question of like, why did you start playful? And at the beginning, it was so hard to pinpoint that one thing because you're right. It's the combination of so many different data points and so many experiences and both like looking at myself and the things that my friends went through. And when I explained it to educators, Mike look selfishly
I'm trying to build it. I wish a 15 year old Maria had when she was young, and was she was struggling because if I can reach her who was you know, again trying to be this like, cool girl that was really high achieving and like didn't need anyone's help was super independent, but was in I'd really, really vulnerable, and really needed additional love
and support. If I can reach her like I can reach anyone, basically my, my perspective, so every time like, Okay, we're going to launch this new product or, or this new initiative and like, okay, would I have used that? And how do we make it cooler? So I would?
Yeah, it's a thing.
It's a thing. Yeah. Interestingly, so I was, I studied to be a mechanical engineer, I thought I was going to be building airplanes for a living. And my hobby was tutoring. So I would spend all of my time after school talking and working with friends and kids of my friends, siblings, teaching, mostly math and science. And I look back on that time now, I'm like, wait, I wasn't super passionate about the unit circle, although SOHCAHTOA is very exciting. But it was really about holding
space for them, right? And talking about, hey, you feel really stressed out about this test, or, Oh, what happened with your boyfriend this time. And really, you know, it was kind of using math and science, like Trojan horse coaching. So I joke now that my first coaching session was when I was 15. And it's true, like, so much of when I look back on that time, like, that's exactly what I was doing.
And I didn't really put all the pieces together, you know, I went to Nearpod, because I saw the impact that education can have, and shifts in education and bringing technology into education could have in a kid's life. But this now, now seeing all this come together, I playful, I'm like, Oh, it was education plus this other thing, like now, it's all making sense.
Totally. I'm sure educators listening to this, recognize that feeling of using the subject that they're teaching is a little bit of a Trojan horse to actually help students, you know, understand themselves understand the world get through the particular struggles they're working with. So many classroom teachers have
played that role. And of course, you know, there's the famous Stanford duck syndrome where, you know, everything looks placid on the surface, but there's lots of stuff happening under the surface, it reminds me of a lot of what you're seeing with some of these adolescents is just some ideas there. So really, I have three more topics I want to ask you about and we're I know we're low on time. So why don't we do sort of Lightning Rounds? These are three really, I think they're
really interesting topics. Are you down for some sort of quick back and forth? Lightning round questions? Let's do it. Let's do it. So first off, we're in a crazy time in the US very politicized educational environment. And there's definitely you know, some parents who really don't think that schools should be providing mental health or they might be very nervous about that. How do you involve families in the playful experience, families
are so so important. And we totally recognize families, like parents rights and wanting to be involved in every decision that affects their kids, that makes a ton of sense. We work with the school to get consent, either informed consent, active consent, depending on the school's decisions, and are able to really leverage our tools and our content, to also support families in their own journeys.
So when we think about the content that we're creating, it's really about making it accessible not just to the student, but to the teacher, so the families, the whole community, so that you're seeing the whole community work through the same things all at the same time. That's
amazing. So you know, you mentioned that you are a tutor. And I definitely see some parallels here between tutoring and coaching. We're in a moment where there's been a lot of hubbub in the EdTech tutoring world, because some of the models that had grown really fast during the pandemic, specifically sort of low touch on call student initiated on demand tutoring led to some really low engagement. And then you're having all these other tutoring providers saying, that's not the way to do it.
It's about relationships. It's about trust. And that conversation reminds me a lot of what you're thinking about in coaching, tell us a little bit about how you balance the sort of on demand text based nature of playful with the trust and relationship that has to be built in a mental health environment.
We do a lot of work upfront to build that trust. So it's in the materials that we share with students and the materials that we share with teachers. It's in the like video and how we introduce ourselves. And the trust building is sort of the foundational piece that we've really focused on over the last year and a half, two years. And once we have that, and then pot the court, it becomes about, hey, it's a service good, right?
And then once they try, like, do they have a good experience, and are they willing to come back? So both of those things have been our biggest priorities to really ensure, hey, we're reaching as many kids as possible and for us, we're reaching 30 40% of the students They're the ones coming in and talking to us. That's 30 times what other districts see with other mental health or even like
tutoring providers. So it's really about, again, going back to like equity and access, providing that support at scale, and making sure that students are constantly aware of it. So we think a lot about marketing and like, how do you like I was in New York for a trip and I was looking at the subway, I'm like, Okay, how do we leverage all these different? You know, the school building in itself is a whole marketing canvas, like, what do we do? Like? How do we
think about posters? And how do we think about different materials that you can put on there to always create awareness about what we're doing, and that it's available to kids? So it's a big focus area? And, really, I mean, the reason why is because we don't think that we'll be able to have an impact if kids don't use it. And that's why we're here. Right. That's why we started. So a lot of our focus, if not all of our focus really goes into that.
My Interesting thing is your contracts also usage as part of the pricing scheme. Is that right?
Yeah, we've worked really hard to align incentives across, I'm a huge believer of aligning incentives and making sure that districts are aligned with us, and that we're all trying to do the same things. And it turns out, districts don't like paying for things kids aren't using. You can't blame them. So we've kind of rethought that model to ensure that districts are one getting the value that they're paying for. And two, that they're feeling like, Hey, we're
in this together. And if we aim to have 30 40% of the kids, let's work together to get that because that's what's going to drive our success. And that's what's going to again, have the biggest impact for kids. Yeah.
And the higher percentage of kids using it, the more normalized it is, you know, the more playful corners there are, the more that people can recommend it to each other makes it part of the school culture. Exactly. So and the last question, and we are really pushed it on time here, all those at home who are waiting on their drinking game until I've talked about AI, because I do it every single episode. You mentioned AI in passing, you said everything is AI monitored
and human monitored. How do you see AI playing into this incredibly human relationship driven counseling relationship? Just in a minute? And
a minute? Okay. I know. I mean, obviously, when I talked to schools that that question is coming up more and more. And you can't imagine the level of relief, I see both in their faces and their body language, when I say it's a human, not an AI, that's talking to the students. So right away, that is key. When mentioned some of the feedback that we get from students where they really value the time that's being held not just like the advice or the
tools that we share. That's, you know, were a connected species, like we thrive off of connection. And knowing that someone is spending time with us and someone cares about us is so so, so, so valuable, and a lot of times again, because we're such a disconnected society nowadays, that's what we're missing the most. Yes. So for kids, it's really they test us all the time. Like, is this about? Is this about is it?
Well, we'll we'll do funny things like inadvertently, like put typos in like, look, bots don't make typos. They don't make mistakes. They're bots. So it's like ways to get them to realize like, okay, yes, they are actually real. Yeah, that we're also thinking about how do we leverage it to accelerate our business, right, AI can do so much. And you know, whether it's talking about filtering, monitoring operationalizing a lot of our work so that we're able to move faster and reach
more kids. There's a lot of tools and a lot of potential for that. But at the core AI doesn't understand nuance in a way where we remember we had an escalation where a kid was like, I'm gonna jump off the bridge. But wait, what? Like, I'm paying fortnight that's different. So we're able to work with the human harder to do that with right now at least hilarious
example, dark, but really funny. Okay, so we usually have our two questions we end with, but I know we've been pushing our luck here. Just gonna ask you one of our final questions you we've talked about mental health. We've talked about anxiety, depression, suicide, teachers shorted so many things, what is a resource that you would recommend for any of our listeners who want to dive deeper into the topics we discussed today? So
I'm actually going to flip it because there's a lot of content out there about any of these topics, right? If you go in any, in any educational publication, there's a ton and these are definitely the main topics that are being talked about. I want to recommend a book by it's called Switch. And I'm actually looking at the author's right now. It's two brothers. They also wrote the power of moments. And right, yes, yes, yes. Yes. It is
incredible. And it's all about how to we're trying to switch people into like create eating a whole new habit and then a whole industry at the core. So that book has been sort of my bible
said and Chip Heath. It's a great book that couldn't agree more some really, really wise ideas in that book that switched by Dan and Chip Heath, we will as always put a link to that book in the show notes for this episode, no affiliate linking, we're just getting make it easy to find. Maria, this has been fantastic. I really, really appreciate
talking to you today. And I just what you're doing is such an interesting way and important way to expand the mental health capacity of our overloaded education system in a way that really is, you know, respectful to the students and the teachers and doesn't try to sort of, you know, scramble things. It's really interesting. Thanks so much for being here with us today.
Thanks so much for having me. It was amazing. Yeah.
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