When a child is in crisis, the impact is felt by the whole family.
With COVID disrupting and isolating young people from their routines, 46% of parents have noticed a new or worsening
Yet support is hard to find: children’s mental health provider platform Brightline found that while 92% of parents with children experiencing a behavioral health challenge sought support, less than half received the help they needed, and 12% received no support at all.
Read more:
“COVID has drastically exacerbated children's mental health, but what I was hearing from parents was that they just don't know where to start,” says Kenzie Butera Davis, founder of
The platform is available to consumers to download and also as an employer-provided benefit, meant to help bridge this education gap and empower parents to advocate for their children and themselves. The Maro app provides research-backed support and resources for navigating
“Right now, we cover somewhere between 30 and 40 different behavioral health topics that range from talking to both young boys and girls about menstruation and gender identity, to talking about racism, to how can I address minor anxiety, all the way to suicidal risk,” Davis says. “We’re really covering broad, expansive things, but we walk you through it in such a way that it's a roadmap, and you don't feel like there's just an overwhelming amount of information that you have to sift through.”
Read more:
The app is “like GPS,” Davis says. Parents can learn and ask questions before going to a mental health provider, without having to deal
“I may not go to the doctor immediately because I'm embarrassed to ask certain questions, in the same way that I wouldn't want to ask for directions,” she says. “But I don't have to tell anybody I'm using my GPS. And in that way, you don't have to tell anyone that you're using maro when you're getting all of this great provider-backed information.”
The app can also be a first step for parents who don’t know how to learn about what’s going on with their child, and then walk them through the process of finding a provider. By partnering with employers, the app can be linked with an existing EAP or other benefit plan. Maro also has partnerships with a variety of behavioral health providers to offer discounted services on therapy and psychiatric care.
The app is a good step toward supporting parents beyond traditional parental benefits like leave and child care, Davis says. And HR leaders committed to their teams need to acknowledge that parents need support at every stage, Davis says.
“Historically, benefits have focused on early life and the earliest stages, and once parents get into those more complex needs beyond child care and parental leave, we’re lacking support,” Davis says. “But because so many benefits team members are also parents, they just immediately understand it. There's such an open mindset and excitement toward adopting new solutions that they feel could make a difference.”
