PLAINWELL, Mich. — A new wellness app aims to provide students in Allegan County with free mental health services in the palm of their hands.
“I experienced a lot of alienation amongst my peers, and so to me, this would be something that I would have accessed before I would have gone to a counselor or social worker,” said Charlie Wynne, the compliance and coordinating officer at Plainwell Community Schools (PCS).
Wynne explains a post-pandemic survey of PCS middle and high school scholars found 40 percent of them shared suicidal thoughts, so, in 2022, the district began to use Clayful.
It’s an app that connects students to mental health coaches who provide individual support within minutes.
“We wanted to come up with something that we could have available to every kid,” said Wynne. “We knew that if we just hired another counselor or something, we wouldn't be able to get the one-on-one with every student.”
Just over a year later, Wynne says it allows the district to better meet scholar needs.
A recent evaluation of the program at PCS found the following:
- 37 percent of students made two or more contacts with a coach within the first few months of Clayful’s rollout
- PCS’s male student population engaged with Clayful three times higher than the state and national average
- The most engagement happened among 9th and 10th graders at PCS
“Having different pathways and different ways to reach young people, giving them support after school when they're no longer in the building, all these things are really, really, really important,” said Maria Barrera, founder and CEO of Clayful. “We really see this as an extension of what schools are already doing.”
Barrera says back-end data can provide additional insight to districts who use Clayful.
For example, PCS learned its freshman and sophomores were “completely terrified” of not being perfect academically, so the district is now developing strategies to mitigate test anxiety during students’ free periods and creating lessons that emphasize growth over perfection.
If Clayful coaches encounter a crisis situation, they work with a district’s reporting system and safety team.
Twenty districts across the country, including Wayland Union Schools, currently use Clayful.
“It’s really about giving them tools that not only help them in that moment but also are going to serve them for the rest of their lives,” said Berrera.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in six children ages 6–17 experience a mental health disorder each year but only half receive services.
Barrera and Wynne believe Clayful, and other apps like it, could change the lives of those students.
“Ideally, what it is, is it's a piece of the larger machine,” said Wynne. “That students are using this in those moments that are tough, but then also reaching out to a counselor or a trusted family member or even a friend because we know that Clayful alone isn't the answer but we believe that it is unlocking the mental health for some kids that have never utilized it.”
