Member Article

SMART Technologies and Kooth join forces to transform student and teacher wellbeing

*** SMART partners with Kooth to bring vital mental health resources and support to more students

• The partnership is an education industry-first for supporting students and teachers with their mental health

• At least 17% of six to 16-year-olds now suffer from probable mental disorders**

SMART, the edtech company with a 35-year track record of pioneering learning solutions, has partnered with Kooth, the leading digital mental wellbeing platform, to provide educators with engaging lessons on how to support students and teachers with managing mental health.

This industry-first collaboration will see SMART Technologies apply its interactivity and engagement expertise to Kooth’s clinically proven mental wellbeing content and activities, and embed it into SMART’s digital learning tool, Lumio™ . In doing so, SMART will be able to provide teachers with readily available and digitally engaging lessons centered around mental wellbeing, connecting more educators and learners to Kooth’s resources and community. This includes making Kooth’s integrated platform - currently available to over 20,000 schools across the UK - available in North America, too.

The partnership comes at a pivotal time for supporting mental wellness for students, with CDC data showing that rates of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse continue to rise. In the UK, data from NHS Digital finds that one in six, 6 to 16-year-olds in the UK now suffer from probable mental disorders – up from one in nine in 2017. The importance of an integrated approach to early education and support for mental health has never been greater.

Kooth is the UK’s largest digital wellbeing mental health platform for 10-25 year olds, and delivers clinically proven, and research-evidenced therapies for those dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental health and wellbeing concerns.

The strategic partnership will also see SMART help to propel Kooth’s North American expansion and beyond by coupling Kooth’s wellbeing expertise with SMART’s global scale and reach to roll-out vital mental health lessons and support to schools and educators across the globe.

Nicholas Svensson, CEO of SMART Technologies, said: “As a company, we have always worked to deliver technology platforms and solutions that boost student and teacher wellbeing and build connections that matter – whether that’s through creating engaging content where students can interact with one another, providing active, collaborative learning options, or supporting social and emotional learning (SEL).”

“As a leader of wellbeing in education in the UK, Kooth can further improve our offering with its clinical expertise that’s underpinned by extensive research and experience in supporting hundreds of thousands of students every year. Together, we’re excited about what we can achieve as a collective unit in alleviating one of the most prevalent issues in classrooms today.”

Tim Barker, CEO at Kooth, said: “The pandemic accelerated mental health challenges amongst students, and as a result, educators are now working tirelessly to provide support where they can. Our collaboration with SMART leverages its trust and scale in education to make accessing our clinically developed content and platform easier for teachers and students across the US, UK, and beyond.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Chloe Ryder .