Building trust in schools' mental health network
The prevalence of mental health issues among youths is increasing,
yet a significant number of cases remain undetected due to the absence
of standardized testing tools and a coordinated care system in schools.
Maro is a company addressing this problem by equipping counselors
with early detection tools in an integrated mental health care platform
for schools.
My team designed this platform to enable counselors to shift from providing crisis care to a scalable, collaborative care model to help more adolescents in need.
I helped design a counselor web platform for Maro, a 2023 GSV cup winner for EdTech Startups.
Evolving mental health care needs
in U.S. schools
The demand for mental health care is increasing, and the COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted the conventional modes of treatment. The pandemic forced schools to adapt, shifting from in-person treatment to usng telehealth services while incorporating social-emotional learning into their curriculum. However, the implementation of universal mental health screenings in schools is relatively low.*
* ** ***Kaiser Family Foundations,
Landscape of School Based Mental Health Services, 2022
ROLE
Product Manager
YEAR
2023
TEAM
Product Designer, UI Designer,
UX Researcher
DELIVERABLES
Stakeholder interviews
Research from user interviews
Competitive analysis
Journeys/Flows
Sketches/Mockups
Prototypes
Final executive presentation
"During the 2021-2022 school year, approximately half of schools reported they strongly (12%) or moderately agreed (44%) they could effectively provide mental health services to all students in need."**
34%
U.S. schools reported offered mental health screenings
70%
U.S. schools
reported offers mental health
services coordination
84%
U.S. schools reported offers
one on one counseling***
A competitive analysis shows that competitors are targeting one of these pain points
of mental health supports:
• Many are operating a telehealth model to connect patients with providers
• Others are focusing on providing training and education to counselors and students
• Some are targeting the need for more assessments with online mental health screenings
MARO COMPETITORS
ACTIVITIES AND OUTPUTS: MARKET RESEARCH, COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
Counselors patch together a process
The core areas of focus on the Maro counselor platform are the sign on, screening and referral (to outside mental health resources) interactions. To built the necessary screens, we needed to understand counselors’ current workflow when it comes to mental health. I interviewed school counselors to get their insights and synthesized the research.
“...needing to meet all needs is a constant pressure on our school counselors...”
-Johanna, school counselor
KEY FINDINGS:
• Counselors feel they can’t do the job to the best of their ability because of lack
of time and resources
• There’s a lack of standardized screenings
• Counselors are typically handling crisis intervention vs preventative intervention
• Counselors want a better way to get guardian consent to administer screenings
• Referrals to outside mental health services are inconsistent
• Majority of counselors lack a comprehensive tool that enables communication with collaborators and records data and session notes.
ACTIVITIES AND OUTPUTS: USER INTERVIEWS, AFFINITY MAPPING
Conceptualizing Counselor Needs
Next, I moved to journey mapping and user flows to identify opportunities and points of frustrations in the Maro web platform:
-
long onboarding process — I successfully persuaded Maro leadership to remove specific tasks from counselors' responsibilities and reassign them to administrators.
-
Counselors need a platform to help them do their work. This includes an
efficient way to administer screenings, obtain and track guardian consent (to test and send referrals).
1.
Quickly
finding the
screener rewarding to
counselors
2.
Documenting
plan of action
helpful to
counselors
1.
Long
onboarding
process
2.
Consent a
possible time
deterrent for
counselors
Collaborative sketching helped clarify where we can save counselors time by making the screening and referral processes more efficient.
ACTIVITIES AND OUTPUTS: JOURNEY MAPPING, USER FLOW, SKETCHES
Validating our assumptions
From sketching, we moved to high fidelity wireframes and then to testing our prototype.
I wanted to validate our assumption that counselors need to test a substantial number of students simultaneously. To achieve this, we implemented a grade-level division approach that allows counselors to assess the number of students with obtained consent.
We ultimately opted for a dashboard setup that provides counselors with the ability to view multiple data values simultaneously and with ease.
DESIGN 2
DESIGN 1
Where we landed
The sign-up, screening, and referral processes were optimized by eliminating unnecessary steps, implementing automated and customizable features, and empowering counselors
to efficiently assess and refer a large number of students to mental health services.
Multiple screens combined to one for quicker sign up
Counselors can conduct screenings at grade level and then
customize using filters
Automated email for appointments with counselors
A slight detour...
During the course of the project, company leadership expressed a desire to broaden the project's scope with extra features. This included a mass referral feature which involved sending a compiled list of telehealth providers to students with similar mental health profiles as well as an automated calendar invite sent to guardians to discuss about
external referrals.
I effectively persuaded key stakeholders to reconsider the additional features and refocus on the project's original scope. We quickly prototyped these features and shared feedback which indicated that these additional functionalities would introduce unnecessary complexity for counselors in performing their tasks.
Final Recommendations
My final recommendation to our client is to build trust in the platform by making Maro for counselors the one place for their screening and referral needs. This means balancing customization with automation needs of counselors.
• Explore allowing counselors to add their own network of professionals for referrals.
• Customize options for screeners in the platform.
• Evaluate the potential of adding a note taking feature.
