A Cincinnati-based edtech startup is partnering with the region’s second-largest university on a statewide effort to address a growing mental wellness crisis among students and staff worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic — a project that stands as its biggest to date.
Over-the-Rhine-based Abre.io, an education software platform provider, and Miami University’s Center for School-Based Mental Health Programs announced a partnership last week on two pilot initiatives supported by the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
The initiatives, which will launch this summer, will reach more than 80 schools and provide access to mental wellness resources to over 40,000 students, young adults and their families in Ohio, according to a release.
For Abre, it’s an opportunity to show the flexibility and adaptability of its platform, “to help in an area where not a lot of technology is actually helping,” James Stoffer, CEO of Abre, told me. Abre initially focused on college and career technical preparedness, Stoffer said, and has evolved into broader offerings around social and emotional learning.
The pilots also represent the startup's largest projects to date, a significant opportunity to grow its presence in Ohio, Stoffer said, and increasingly nationwide.
“It triples our business almost overnight, and represents by far the most important use-case that our platform has adopted to,” Stoffer said. “It immediately brings us into an additional 80-plus schools — all here in Ohio. There’s a huge pilot conversion opportunity to expand to other school in a district or in other neighborhood districts that may not have gotten selected to be one of the pilot sites.
"There is an appetite, a need and desire for communities and school districts to help proactively address some of the issues around school-based mental health,” he said.
Each pilot will leverage Abre’s technology, which will connect all stakeholders in schools with community partners to help augment interventions, provide real-time access to mental health services, and offer new social and emotional learning training to better support students.
Per a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, mental health-related emergency room visits nationwide increased 31% for children age 12-17 and 24% for children age 5-11 from March 2020 to October 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.
To address that need, Dr. Cricket Meehan, director of Miami’s CSBMHP, and her team were selected by the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services to develop a 21-month plan.
In partnership with Abre.io, Miami University will help the state implement first-of-their-kind frameworks to provide access to resources needed in the learning community. The partnership aims to ensure interventions are timely, and that future issues can potentially be prevented altogether.
“We hope our partnership will be an important strategy to bring much-needed mental health and wellbeing resources and support to Ohio’s students, families, school personnel and community partners,” Meehan said in a release.
The effort is being funded in part by the Governor's Emergency Education Relief money – part of Ohio's share of Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security, or CARES, funds. Miami’s Center for School-based Mental Health Programs was selected to receive $6 million to aid mental wellness for Ohio's K-12 students and staff.
“The definition of school has changed,” Stoffer said in the release. “Students need to exit K-12 mentally healthier and more confident. We’re here to help all stakeholders move beyond education success being determined by state test scores or grades in core subject areas.”
For Abre, this marks its second new publicly announced partnership in a month. The startup is also working with Evendale-based Pay Theory, which provides payment solutions for school districts, child care centers and families who may be un- or underbanked, to power a new app, which families can use to pay for field trips, sports fees or advanced placement tests.
Abre was founded in 2018 and is backed by seed-stage investor CincyTech.
