Equitable Classrooms

JovenSalud.net

An interactive online platform ensuring 24/7 access to essential health information and personalized counseling for vulnerable youth

Team Lead

Mary Coffman

Solution Name:

JovenSalud.net

One-line solution summary:

Online career, education and crisis support for teens to finish school and graduate.

Pitch your solution.

When Covid-19 began, 160 million students in Latin America stopped receiving classes in person. With COVID cases increasing and schools still closed, TeenSmart International is committed to supporting the most vulnerable youth so that they are not excluded from achieving a high-quality education to build 21st century skills and competencies. TeenSmart provides Jovensalud.net, an online, safe and equitable learning environment that supports the physical and mental health of 10-24 year-olds. Our online coaching service gives youth support from professional psychologists and includes a system for identifying and monitoring high-risk cases in mental health (depression, suicide, abuse, violence). Our virtual courses teach skills to young people to deal with situations such as bullying, improve their self-esteem and mood and prevent online risky behaviors. Our solution also has a communication system which sends “microlearning messages” and right now we are executing a project called YoMePreparo to prevent school dropout and support students.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

Between the ages of 10-24, children pass through key developmental experiences and complex emotional and moral questioning on their path to adulthood. For teenagers as individuals and for the society that surrounds them, adolescence is an opportunity for skill-building, introspection, building community, questioning status quo, exploring, and learning.

However, teens are the least likely of all age groups to receive or access traditional health services necessary to accompany them through this developmental process (WHO). In the absence of support and to cope through such tremendous development, teens often turn to risk behaviors. Specifically, six common risk behaviors (violence, tobacco, alcohol/drugs, risky sexual behaviors, sedentarianism and poor nutrition) contribute to 75% of health care costs of illness and death in Latin America and the United States (CDC, UNICEF, WHO). The financial and social costs associated with these behaviors during adolescence and later in life as adults, are staggering for governments and society. In Latin America, national crises compound individual development crises and result in tragic statistics: 50,000 unaccompanied Central American minors migrate to the US border each year; 1 out of every 4 Nicaraguan girls become mothers by 18; throughout the region, increasing rates of suicide and suicidal ideation devastate communities.

What is your solution?

TeenSmart’s solution is to promote 21st century life-skills and personal leadership in teens via JovenSalud.net - an interactive, online platform where youth have 24/7, confidential access. Youth guide their own process of reflection and support through the different services which include: personal health quizzes, confidential coaching where trained health professionals have fielded 100,000 one-on-one crisis-support, a virtual health library, online chats and forums, and a community health resource directory. For MIT’s Equitable Classrooms Global Challenge, TeenSmart will amplify its confidential, online coaching service and launch a massive campaign to address education inequalities in Latin America and promote teens to finish their learning by ensuring for the safety and mental health of learners. In addition to receiving personalized support messages, learns can request crisis support, report violence and mitigate cyberbullying. To deliver JovenSalud.net, TeenSmart uses a Learning Management System (LMS), an evaluation system, a personalized counseling system, communication tools (Twilio for SMS, Turn.io for WhatsApp Business Api), development technologies (JAVA, Python, Microsoft SQL Server, AWS Environment, Web HTML 5, Ionic), Rasa and Rasa X Open Source conversational AI platform and organizational tools (Office 365, Sharepoint, Freshdesk, JIRA, Confluence). By harnessing technology, we provide 24/7 access to anyone, anywhere.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

TeenSmart’s primary population are Central American youth who want the skills to be empowered, inspired, and informed in order to promote their rights to participation, development, and protection in the face of poverty, drug-trafficking, teen pregnancy, incarceration, and violence. These teens are traditionally excluded from youth development services due to gender, religious beliefs, and geographic distance from city centers. Through TeenSmart's virtual platform (JovenSalud.net), any teen, anywhere, anytime can access support. To date, 80,000 teens have registered on TeenSmart's youth platform with the potential to scale out to 70 million.

Engaging teens through an interactive online platform ensures that they are the agents of change whereas traditional approaches have focused on costly adult-led face-to-face interactions (difficult to scale) and on family and community factors (outside of teen’s control). TeenSmart listens to youth where they feel safe and comfortable: on their phones and online!

This project will be coordinated by the TeenSmart team but co-designed by the teen participants. Since 2004, more than 80,000 youth have turned to TeenSmart with their goals, questions, and stories. They tell us that they are experiencing violence, lack of opportunity and uncertainty. These life experiences are the foundation for this project’s curriculum and the youth who participate will guide their own intervention by rating their satisfaction with the messages as they receive them - ensuring that each teen be her/his own change agent for empowerment.

To hear directly from an empowered teen, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK8iBSEfwY0&t=1s

To address teens' needs in a meaningful way, TeenSmart studies the data it collects on every user:

Use: how teens find us, what services they use, how often they return, etc.
Satisfaction (randomly assessed, teens rate JS.net 85-90% or higher)
Impact (pre/post tests and qualitative testimonies)

Additionally, TeenSmart's work is informed by a youth leadership council and youth clubs.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Ensure the physical safety and mental health of learners—for example, through tools for crisis support, reporting violence, and mitigating cyberbullying.

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

Teenagers and young adults need to develop 21st century skills and competencies to thrive through the turbulent period of adolescence and to build healthy coping strategies for resilience. Unfortunately, teens are least likely of all age groups to access traditional support services and with public schools being closed throughout Latin America due to COVID, teens do not have professional support for social-emotional learning and career exploration. By launching a massive coaching & education campaign through a proven and award-winning virtual learning organization, TeenSmart can help ensure for the safety, mental health and success of learners throughout Latin America.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

San José Province, San José, Costa Rica

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growth.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

TeenSmart has 15 years of success providing holistic health promotion and confidential coaching to teens throughout Latin America. TeenSmart's innovation and impact has been recognized by the prestigious Carlos Slim Exceptional Health Institute Prize (2016) and the InterAmerican Development Bank Visionary Prize (2018). Quantitative results demonstrate TeenSmart's impact on the lives of Latin American youth.

80,000 users
100,000 coaching sessions
10,000 course graduates who report improvements such as greater family communication, less depression and suicidal ideation, greater seatbelt and helmet use, less weapon carrying and fighting, healthier dietary habits, postponement of alcohol consumption, and greater condom use.

TeenSmart has several published studies of its impact and an external review of TeenSmart in 2018 by the Evans School of Public Affairs (UW), concluded that TeenSmart is hundreds of times more cost-effective than government management of the resulting problems.

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Adriana Gomez, Executive Director

https://www.teensmart.org, www. jovensalud.net

If you have additional video content that explains your solution, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link here:

Which of the following categories best describes your solution?

A new application of an existing technology

What makes your solution innovative?

TeenSmart is uniquely innovative because it:

listens to youth online where they feel safe and comfortable;
uses micro-learning messaging to engage, equip and empower youth;
transcends borders to reach youth anywhere, anytime via internet;
promotes self-care and personal leadership among youth via free online coaching;
advances science by collecting data on the adolescent health population, which is underreported in research;

Additionally, TeenSmart is

cost-effective;
scalable;
smart and getting smarter: www.JovenSalud.net has an automated evaluation system that allows for continuous and immediate monitoring of use, satisfaction, and impact of services;
based upon best behavioral science and practice. TeenSmart uses and evaluates health promotion content and methods from expert international organizations such as WHO and CDC.
Focused on prevention: The majority of TeenSmart users are 10-13 years old which means that there is more possibility of preventing risky behaviors before they start.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
Audiovisual Media
Crowd Sourced Service / Social Networks

Select the key characteristics of your target population.

Women & Girls
LGBTQ+
Children & Adolescents
Rural
Peri-Urban
Urban
Poor
Low-Income
Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons
Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations

Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?

3. Good Health and Well-being
4. Quality Education
5. Gender Equality
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
10. Reduced Inequality
16. Peace and Justice Strong Institutions
17. Partnerships for the Goals

In which countries do you currently operate?

Costa Rica
Nicaragua
United States

In which countries will you be operating within the next year?

Costa Rica
Nicaragua
United States

How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?

As of June 2021, 80,000 youth have registered on JovenSalud.net and return on average 3-4 times. We have logged over 100,000 one-on-one coaching sessions from 34,000 teens, and more than 10,000 Latin American teens have graduated from our life-skills courses. TeenSmart youth graduation rates are very high (80-90%) compared to other e-learning platforms that tend to have low engagement and high turnover.

Each year, an average of 10,000 new users register on JovenSalud.net and 2,000 of those go on to graduate from life-skills courses. Likewise, we receive 300-500 coaching requests, on average, per week.

By analyzing these user trends and data and accelerating our platform’s capacities with automatic intelligence, we can project growth at 15% to 25%/year for the next five years (90,000 in one year, 140,000 in 5 years), but we will have the capacity to serve millions of at-risk Latin American teens.

How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?

TeenSmart collects data on every single user and leads best-practices for non-profit monitoring and evaluation by measuring the following indicators:

Use: 80,000+ youth have registered on the site and return 3-4 times on average, favoring the crisis coaching service
User satisfaction: Teens rate the platform with 85-90% satisfaction.
Impact: Youth who complete a pre/post-test report better family communication, increased helmet and seatblet use (traffic accidents are the number one cause of youth death in Latin America), increased use of contraceptives in the sexually-active population, and a decrease in depression and violence.

In addition to automatic measurements, TeenSmart has several published studies of its impact. In 2017, TeenSmart collaborated with CLARO (largest telecommunication service in Central America) to assess use, satisfaction and impact of SMS messages to improve family communication in youth with conflictual family relationships. Results were positive and published and assessed 13 outcomes of which 11 were statistically significant.[1]

TeenSmart results demonstrate that teens are finding the resources they need on JovenSalud.net as youth return repeatedly to the platform. For example, in 2021, coaching requests have increased by 156% over 2020 and the average user of the health resources directory has consulted it more than 25 times.

[1] Source: Medrano, V. Bonilla G., Hernández, E., Harnecker M, Gómez, A,J.Hernández, Ríos M. Strachan-Lindenberg, C. (2017). Improving family communication: Using Smartphones to encourage Nicaraguan adolescents to think, feel and take positive action. Hispanic Health Care International Vol 15, Issue 1, pp. 35 – 42.

What type of organization is your solution team?

Nonprofit

How many people work on your solution team?

10 full-time staff

4 part-time staff

4 contractors

How long have you been working on your solution?

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

TeenSmart International is a non-profit organization with 15 years of experience and legal status in the United States, Costa Rica and Nicaragua. It is led by TeenSmart’s Executive Director, Adriana Gomez, who has a master’s degree in Educational Technology from the Tecnológico del Monterrey, Mexico and has been instrumental in scaling TSI’s impact from 5,000 to 75,000 teens since 2012. She belongs to important professional networks such as Central American Healthcare Initiative and the Gratitude Fellowship Network. Her team is made up of 15 high-level professionals with advanced degrees and experience in pedagogical psychology, virtual education, graphic design, content creation, communications and monitoring and evaluations, software engineering, and instructional design, and who also train and accompany 100 professional volunteers per year.

TeenSmart's board of directors is made up of 15 experts in areas such as Public Health, Psychology, Leadership, Finance, Philanthropy, Technology and Venture Companies. We are honored that a former member of the Board of Directors and current ally, is the Costa Rican Minister of Health, Dr. Daniel Salas, who has been leading Costa Rica's renowned response to the COVID-19 crisis.

TeenSmart is a visionary organization, with demonstrated results and enormous growth potential. It is for these reasons that TeenSmart was chosen for the following prestigious prizes honoring its work and impact:

1st Place Carlos Slim Foundation Exceptional Health Institute Award Latin America
2nd Place Visionary JK Prize from the InterAmerican Development Bank 2018
2nd Place Non-Profit with greatest social Impact in Latin America by VIVA Idea Schmidheiny 2018

What is your approach to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive leadership team?

At TeenSmart, we believe that meaningful change is only possible when the project is informed by the complex social and environmental circumstances and lived experiences of its beneficiaries. This is why community and youth co-design efforts are so important to TeenSmart and why we value cultural awareness and connection among our team. Staff live in Central American, studied at its schools, and are - in many cases - raising families in its vulnerable neighborhoods. Several staff were originally users of JovenSalud.net who went on to become volunteer coaches while getting their bachelors and advanced degrees. The Board of Directors is 50% female, 75% Central American-based, and have held leadership roles in major regional institutions such as INCAE Business School, Zamorano University in Honduras, and UPOLI University in Nicaragua.

TeenSmart has very high ethical standards for horizontality and collective wisdom development. As part of the orientation process, staff are trained on horizontal and transparent organizational best practices. We believe that knowledge is power and in inviting wise stakeholders into the conversation to solve the problem together.

Serving marginalized and vulnerable populations are the foundation of TeenSmart’s mission and values and all staff and volunteers are trained in our CRECER Para SER signature model for personal empowerment and communication in relationships. Staff then promote this through work with teens. We believe that by engaging teens through an interactive e-platform built for them, without prejudice to gender or sexual orientation, TeenSmart enables teens to be the agents of change in their own lives.

Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, to other organizations, or to the government?

Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)

Why are you applying to Solve?

With 17 years of experience and increasing 15% annual enrollments, TeenSmart has continued to prove that our concept works, our impact is meaningful and cost-effective, and that youth and communities need access to our 24/7 virtual health services now more than ever before. Increasingly, TeenSmart's partners in governments and institutions look to JovenSalud.net to reach teens via new technologies, media, and information. The JovenSalud.net platform has become the region's leading e-learning resource for promoting adolescent health and life skills. TeenSmart is an innovative, adaptable, capable, sustainable, mission-driven, and scalable solution that ensures cost-efficient access to health support for teens who would otherwise not have access. And TeenSmart has a strong team, an inspiring vision and a clear plan for amplifying its impact.

The SOLVE Prize would give TeenSmart the funds, the media platform, and the credibility to scale up our impact and take the next step towards a solution that is global, virtual, viral, and engaging for teens. JovenSalud 3.0 will allow us to reach millions of vulnerable adolescents, ensuring health-information and counseling access for them.