MentorHub

Mentoring programs, while very popular and promoted as a simple solution to the problems of many underserved youth, have at best a small positive impact. The tragedy is that while these programs are well-positioned to help hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of youth to thrive, these programs have not adopted improvements that research shows could significantly improve their positive impact on youth’s well-being. Our goal is to bring mentoring and advising programs into the 21st century to help more youth to improve their well-being and achieve their highest aspirations!

MentorHub is an app that 1) personalizes interventions based on a youth’s real-time challenges, 2) curates the best mental health apps to help youth develop life-long skills, and 3) trains mentors to coach mentees using “supportive accountability” to encourage them to achieve their self-defined goals.

When scaled, our platform could transform the well-being of millions of youth worldwide.

In the United States, alone, 15 million children and adolescents need psychological services, yet only 36% receive psychological services of any kind. Even fewer receive care that is consistent with evidence-based guidelines. This gap has widened dramatically with the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of children. Increasingly, mental health apps (MHapps) are being used to bridge these gaps and address youth’s most common behavioral and mental health concerns. When users are engaged, evidence-based MHapps produce similar effect sizes to those delivered by trained mental health workers. The expansion of MHapps, however, has been limited by the fact that most users do not open the MHapps beyond the first installation.

Technology-delivered interventions (TDIs), including mental health apps, hold the promise of improving the well-being and on-time graduation rates of marginalized students. Additionally, mental health applications can redress some of the major social-emotional impediments to academic achievement (e.g., stress, sleep, social anxiety, emotional dysregulation). Unfortunately, even the most promising TDIs often underperform because of low uptake, improper or inconsistent use, and high rates of attrition, especially among low-income students of color.

MentorHub connects students with the world's most effective mental health apps. New research demonstrates how supportive accountability, that is, personalized coaching, nudging, and encouragement can dramatically increase the effectiveness of and adherence to technology-driven mental health interventions. MentorHub, a newly developed multi-sided platform, facilitates and scales this human connection by providing tools for mentors, counselors, and advisors to track and support students’ engagement in evidence-based mental health apps. 

The MentorHub app collects students’ weekly self-report data on their personal challenges and then algorithmically matches them to best-in-class TDIs that address their individual needs. Thus, each student gets an individualized intervention based on their self-reported needs and priorities.  MentorHub enables mentors to track and monitor students’ app and platform usage through shared APIs, and guides mentors in providing effective coaching or supportive accountability to encourage consistent use of the evidence-based mental health and well-being apps.  The platform includes in-app texting and video chat capacity.  Soon to be released features include a guides and goals section that will allow organizations and mentors to access additional research-informed mental health resources and help youth define and make progress toward their self-defined well-being goals.

MentorHub's target population is secondary and post-secondary students, especially those with mental health needs and coming from underserved communities.  For the purpose of this challenge, we are focused on secondary students.

Psychiatric disorders and their associated impairment remain widespread and burdensome among youth, particularly in low-resource communities, a trend further exacerbated by COVID-19. Yet, only 36% of children
who need behavioral health services receive them.  Even fewer have access to treatment models that meet guidelines for being considered evidence-based.

Our approach to understanding their needs is based on some of the backgrounds and strengths of our team.  One of our co-founders, Jean Rhodes, Ph.D., brings over thirty years of research expertise to our team.  She is the Frank L. Boyden Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston and director of the Center for Evidence-based Mentoring.  Complementing her work is Bud Lavery, MentorHub's CEO, who has worked in and led community-based, youth-development nonprofits for over thirty years.  Additionally, he brings a background in agile development to the team.  Through dozens of interviews of youth, mentors and other stakeholders, the team is refining the product-user fit for the platform.

MentorHub meets students' needs in several key ways.  Via the Mood Ring, it allows students not only to self-report their challenges to their mentor but to do it in a way they strongly prefer - indirectly.  Interviews of students have revealed that they want their mentors to know about their mental health challenges and stressors, but often feel too vulnerable in directly telling their mentor.  

Significantly, unlike most evidence-based interventions, MentorHub does not offer a one-size-fits-all intervention that is relevant to some students but not all.  Instead, it personalizes its recommendations and connects youth to a curated set of third-party, evidence-based mental health apps.  

Finally, MentorHub leverages the critical factor of the support of trusted adults.  Without support, most youth do not use a mental health app beyond their first use.  The coaching or supportive accountability offered by their mentor aids in problem-solving regarding barriers to use including encouraging and nudging them.

Our focus on scaling effective mental health solutions for secondary school students, particularly underserved youth in the U.S, is in direct alignment with the safety and mental health of learners dimension of the Equitable Classroom Challenge.  Our solution is based on the latest evidence-based technology-delivered interventions (TDIs) and how a hybrid model that leverages "supportive accountability" can address the engagement barriers these TDIs have encountered.

MentorHub is at the prototype stage of development.  While we are beyond the concept stage as the software is fully functional, we are not piloting the software at scale in any communities, yet. We are currently testing the product with several nonprofits, and particularly in the Nashville, TN region with approximately 50 mentoring matches in partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee.  Testing is focused on user engagement with the mentees, mentors and program staff; and product-market fit.

Additionally, we are testing the business model.  While our plan is to initially focus on youth mentoring programs, we recognize that this is a relatively small market.  Other related markets are other youth-development organizations as well as K-12 school systems.  Additional testing of the higher education market is underway with Northeastern University and San Jose State University.

In two words, it is "supportive accountability" that makes our solution innovative.  All of us are much more likely to achieve our goals, our dreams, our greatest aspirations when we have a friend or a coach or a mentor to support us and hold us accountable for progressing toward our self-defined goals.  For instance, it's the main reason people hire personal trainers.  While personal trainers offer expertise, people often state that they work with and pay for a trainer because experience has taught them that they are much more likely to stop exercising without the support and accountability that their personal trainer provides.

While mental health apps are prolific, less than 5% of them have evidence to show they are effective.  However, evidence-based apps have extremely low engagement rates.  So what is the solution?

MentorHub's unique approach is to 1) curate existing evidence-based mental health apps (rather than creating a new one); 2) personalize the intervention to the needs of each student (most interventions are one-size fits all); 3) leverage partnerships with mentoring and education organizations that serve millions of students to direct students to these apps; and 4) leverage the trusted relationship of a mentor or advisor to help students achieve their own well-being goals by providing supportive accountability.  

This approach is catalytic in that it leverages the incredible potential of apps to scale impact while providing a significant missing piece in improving the user engagement with the apps using mentors' ability to provide supportive accountability.

Currently, we are testing the app with fifty users, primary mentoring matches in partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee.  This summer, another one hundred college students will be testing MentorHub at Northeastern University.

In one year, we anticipate serving over 5,000 secondary students via our partnerships with affiliates of Big Brothers Big Sisters, and a partnership with a mentoring/literacy initiative serving public schools in New Mexico.  At the post-secondary level, we will be serving another 7,000 college students via partnerships with Northeastern University and Mentor Collective.

In five years, we anticipate serving 350,000 secondary students in partnership with Big Brothers Big Sisters, affiliates of MENTOR, Mentor International, Peraj Mexico (one of the largest mentoring organizations in Mexico), and select public school systems.  At the higher education level, another 1 million students will be served via partnerships with universities, community colleges and Mentor Collective (which is currently in 100 universities).

Because we leverage the use of evidence-based mental health apps, all of those third-party apps have shown impact via randomized controlled trials on a variety of measures related to a range of mental health conditions including anxiety and depression.

MentorHub's Mood Ring is based on research by Harvard University psychologist John Weisz and his colleagues (Weisz, J. R., et al (2011)).  Their validated strategy has a youth list, rank, and describe the problems that concern them most. The top three problems identified by each are then used to help determine treatment and are assessed.  As they note, this approach can inform program staff and focus the intervention and assessment efforts on those issues that youth (and caregivers) consider most important.

Critical to MentorHub's success are measures of user engagement, particularly in comparison to current engagement rates of evidence-based apps.  Our key performance indicators include the percent of Mood Rings completed weekly, the percent of users using the chat features weekly, and the percent of mentees using our recommended apps at least once a week.

Two full-time staff - CEO; Chief Product Officer

Two part-time staff (donated time) - One of the co-founders, who is also a psychology professor and researcher at the UMASS Boston; and a post-doctoral student

Contractor - We outsource our development work.

MentorHub’s strength comes from our team’s dedication to positively impacting the lives of young people and our multi-disciplinary backgrounds.

Jean Rhodes, Ph.D., is our original visionary and very successful at partnership development.  Her day job is as the Director of Evidence-based Mentoring at the University of Massachusetts Boston.  Her professional passion for 30 years has been studying and researching how to help more youth, especially youth from underserved backgrounds, to thrive.  She sees MentorHub as a culmination of her professional life's work.  

Bud Lavery, our CEO, provides the team with the skills of a veteran leader and manager.  He has dedicated his 30-year career to improving the lives of young people from underserved backgrounds.  He has been a school social worker, graduation coach, program manager, Executive Director of two previous nonprofit organizations (Communities In Schools of Durham (NC) and Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina), as well as the founder of a higher education startup (Campus Candor) that was devoted to helping more first-generation college students graduate.  Most of his work has been in urban public schools that have very high rates of economically disadvantaged students.  Much of his work has focused on developing and/or disseminating evidence-based interventions.

Jeremy Astesano, Chief Product Officer, is the youngest person on the leadership team.  At MentorHub, he has discovered an incredible talent for blending evidence-based interventions, agile software development, and project management.

Both the CEO and one of the co-founders have devoted their professional careers to improving equity.  The CEO has spent over thirty years working for and growing nonprofits that improve the educational and mental health success of students of color and those from low-income backgrounds.  Similarly, one of the co-founders has devoted her research and academic career to improving the life outcomes of youth of color and from low-income backgrounds.  

Together, they are building a diverse team as they grow.  They have added a product design consultant, Dr. Bre Gentile, who specializes in software development processes that are inclusive of the voice and perspective of youth of color.  The recently added Chief Data Officer is a black woman.  The hiring of undergraduate and graduate students has also emphasized increasing the diversity of the team.

We are applying to Solve for three primary reasons.

As an experienced CEO, Bud recognizes the value of how a network of advisors and coaches who have complementary areas of expertise can be a catalyst for success.  MentorHub is a small team, at present.  We need advisors and coaches to help us enter each education market, plan for growth, advise us on a range of areas from marketing to sales to legal.

Second, we know that what you know is necessary but not sufficient to succeed.  Who you know is also a critical factor.  The networks of alumni and advisors, and their networks offer a rich range of partnerships.  We want to contribute our areas of expertise to this community and to glean the hard-won wisdom of others as well.

Finally, the prospect of getting in front of forward-thinking funders in this market is important.  Capital is a critical resource we need to build a great product that we think can change the world!

We are in need of support in three key areas.

While we believe we are on the right track with our business model, we need additional thought partners to help us test and refine this.  We know that using an agile development process and the business canvas model will help us to iterate and evolve faster.  Still, we need really smart people to help deepen our understanding of our business model.

The K-12 market is known to be a difficult one to enter and scale in.  We need partners with large established networks who can help us enter these markets.

We are poised for growth, and as such, we need help sourcing talent in specific fields related to our work.  As we grow, we'll need help identifying great players to add to our team that fit our values and builds our collective competencies.

We do not have particular Solve members or MIT faculty we'd like to partner with.  In general, we are looking for advisors and coaches who understand the edtech and mental health tech startup fields