A recent partnership between Neolth and the Iowa Center for School Mental Health aims to expand access to mental health care services for K-12 students, teachers and staff across the state of Iowa.
Neolth is a tech startup that allows students and teachers to track mental health within the school environment. The partnership between Neolth and the Iowa Center for School Mental Health will include on-demand, personalized services through Neolth's app, helping schools develop resilience in their communities with personalized social-emotional learning practices and regulation techniques.
The following is an excerpt from the Neolth article:
In partnership with the Iowa Department of Education, the Iowa Center for School Mental Health strives to build capacity for immediate and future delivery of school-based mental health supports. This collaboration with Neolth is meant to increase access to care, focused on Tier 1 support, with the ultimate goal of reducing stress and improving mental health within schools. As part of this pilot, the Center will work to evaluate Neolth’s digital technology through rigorous, independent research.
“Research indicates kids’ ability to strengthen core social-emotional skills and reduce stress affects lifelong health as well as educational achievement,” says Dr. Bruhn, Iowa Center for School Mental Health Executive Director. “In addition, well-being is critical to teachers’ performance in the classroom, and right now, teachers are overwhelmed. This pandemic has been devastatingly hard on educators and students, and our goal is to integrate mental well-being into the classroom. The Center will examine the impacts of the Neolth technology on teacher and student outcomes.”
Beginning this month, teachers, staff and administrations across two pilot districts will be encouraged to learn more and download the Neolth app. The Iowa Center for School Mental Health will collect information about the clinical impact of the program as part of an independent research evaluation. The pilot will run through the Spring 2022 semester, and data are expected to be published later in the year. Based on the pilot study, the Center hopes to expand its research with the “gold-standard” randomized control trial, which will involve high school students, teachers, and staff using the app.