Elise believes that the best thing to help young people navigate sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism as it shows up online and in the so-called “real world” is to ensure that every young person can connect with adult allies they can trust, thus helping them become comfortable with the most intimate, personal, and vulnerable topics in their lives and moving from fear and shame to health and wellbeing. And this, Elise believes, is achieved far better by meeting young people where they are: online. Elise’s strategy is thus threefold: build a best-in-class alternative to meet the modern mental health challenges among young people, partner with youth-serving organizations nationwide to mainstream this newer and better approach, and leverage data and insights to drive further changes fieldwide.
The origins of OkaySo as a technology platform stem from two straightforward questions: (1) where are young people spending their time? and (2) how can we ensure universal accessibility to support no matter someone’s physical location and family or political environment? Yet Elise and the OkaySo team also knew that human connection and empathy was essential to meeting the needs of young people (As Elise reminds us, a large percentage of young people resort to Google web searches for guidance which can lead them down countless rabbit holes of chat rooms and conflicting advice that is ineffective at best and downright misinformation at worst.) Feeling heard, and having one’s individual experience validated, had to be at the core of the design. As Elise says: “It’s not just the problem that someone has but how they feel about that problem. Feeling alone and that no one understands you is just as bad as what’s happening in the first place.” Thus, behind the technology would be real human beings with real expertise across a range of subject areas so that connection, authenticity, trust, reliability, and vetted quality – precisely what is lacking across most of the digital world – would shine through.
Beginning in 2016, Elise and their team worked with the field-leading design firm IDEO to develop the initial mobile application that would become the direct line of contact to young people. Young people themselves informed each phase of the design – for example the preference that conversations be had not in real time but asynchronously, so that they could respond on their own timeline and come back to a conversation often multiple times over weeks and months. And while users themselves are fully anonymous, they expressed a clear preference to know who they were speaking with. Photos and bios of all OkaySo experts are visible on the website so that there’s full transparency and the ability to build trust. Another design element is that experts work in teams – both as a check on quality but also to send a clear signal that there are multiple people who are listening to you and who believe in you.
Of course, like any good technology, the ease of the user experience is paramount. OkaySo is designed for simplicity: create a personal account in minutes, select a team of experts to ask your free, anonymous questions, and get a human response within 24 hours. Underpinning the many technical design aspects is a deep commitment to create a safe space where young people can be their full selves and head off anxieties, loneliness and more before they develop into crises. In this way, a core piece of the strategy is a preventive one: to “excel in the upstream space” as Elise says and head off a crisis before it becomes a crisis. So while a few questions rise to the level of acute crisis, most fall in the category of more general inquiries related to feelings of loneliness and isolation, or about relationships, identity, and sexual health. OkaySo experts have been trained on how to keep the conversations going as long as necessary, to engage thoughtfully and supportively, and to interrupt the cycles of stigma and shame with empathy as well as facts and practical advice. Young people can also read through a library of past conversations of their peers (shared with permission) to reiterate that these feeling they are having are not uncommon, and that they are far from alone.
OkaySo has proven that its online approach is able to reach young people effectively. More than 17,000 young people have already asked questions through the app, and the topics they’ve raised are far more expansive and inclusive of young people’s actual experiences today than any “one size fits all” information being shared at school. Indeed, as schools increasingly restrict access to comprehensive sex education and youth-facing work, OkaySo is filling a growing void with a youth-driven, sex-positive approach that allows for much more open and unfiltered conversations, and that fosters deep connections and ongoing support.
This contrast between ineffective (or simply absent altogether) avenues and OkaySo is what fuels an ambitious spread strategy. Elise aims to raise the bar on America in how we respond to trauma, full stop. The full market is 54 million young people, with an emphasis on the 20 percent of Generation Z that identify as LGBTQ. Rather than expecting to reach every young person themselves, OkaySo is rolling out a partnership strategy with dozens (and soon to be hundreds) of youth-serving organizations to provide training and technical support – and possible white-labeling the OkaySo technology itself in the future – so that all youth workers will meet young people with support, information, guidance and never stigma. One such partnership is with the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Progress. Another is iFoster (with 50,000 monthly visitors) and Friends of the Children (which operates in 33 locations with hundreds of staff supporting thousands of young people each year.) Via these partner orgs, OkaySo expects to reach 1 million young people within five years.
Parents are another major target group. The sad fact is that even the closest family members fail to see the crucial role they play in meeting a young person appropriately in their moments of need. Something as small as a raised eyebrow, a grimace, or a dismissive comment can shut down a young person who was just about to open up and ask for help or make a life change. Experts in the OkaySo network therefore offer a safe space for these adults to reflect on their own responses and areas for growth. Elise is explicit that the answer is not simply a referral to OkaySo. Why should we expect another org or supportive adult to be more helpful, when – through working with OkaySo – you yourself could become that adult or organization that young people finally feel fully seen and supported? It’s a mindset shift around expertise and accountability that Elise believes will have profound effects on the full youth-serving sector.
Like any good tech platform, OkaySo is rigorous about collecting aggregate data and impact. Based on their surveys, 78% users think of themselves or their situation differently after using the app, 48% move from feeling anxious to calm, 54% increase self-esteem, 85% increase their knowledge. OkaySo has also been able to measure steps young people have taken that are shown to have positive impacts on their lives including ending unhealthy relationships or coming out to a supportive friend. The data they collect, meanwhile, from tens of thousands of conversations, represents a treasure trove for the field as a whole to better understand the patterns of the problem as well as the most effective elements that move young people to positive outcomes – data that OkaySo plans to lean on and leverage to change the conversation and continue to upgrade dominant approaches to youth mental health that are falling short.
OkaySo has one FTE, a team of contractors and a $200k budget. Their budget currently is comprised mostly of grant revenue from organizations like the Robin Hood Foundation and the Roddenberry Foundation, of which Elise is a Fellow, and secondarily from grassroots individual donations and partnerships revenue. As they ramp up their partnerships strategy, they expect these ratios to change until partnerships funding makes up the bulk of their budget.
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