togetherAI - mental health and wellness for families

by Startacus Admin

togetherAI is a Sydney-based startup aiming to help parents, caregivers and children navigate the ups and downs of the growing up journey, together.

Talking to your children about serious matters like mental health isn’t always easy. If something is wrong, they may not even know how to vocalise it, or they don’t know how their parents will react, or perhaps they don’t want their parents to worry. On the other hand, parents don’t automatically become good counsellors the moment they become parents, and might inadvertently make it harder for their children to talk about things. During this pandemic, lockdowns have affected children, disrupting their routines and separating them from their friends. This has resulted in a 50% increase in young people’s susceptibility to mental health issues.

Sydney-based startup togetherAI has created a platform to help both parents and children with communication around mental health and wellbeing. The app, designed by a team with plenty of experience in child psychology, research, and clinical care, not only encourages conversation, but also helps build a child’s resilience to external and internal influences, and builds positive mental health. Children will create a digital companion in the app, which will check on how they are feeling and help them vocalise those feelings, as well as play games with them, share positive messages and thoughts, and educate them on how to understand their feelings, manage them, and talk about them.

For parents, the app helps them learn how to better communicate with their children with conversation guides, and the family is provided with private messaging in the app, meaning that if a child finds it easier to say something in text form rather than aloud, in person, they can. The app will also keep parents updated on how their child is feeling, but without providing too deep an insight as to damage the child’s trust in the parents or the app. It will use these insights to flag to parents when a conversation is necessary (separate from encouraging communication in general).

Across 2 pre-seed and seed rounds in February and June 2021, togetherAI has raised a total of AUD$3.7 million in funding, which will have gone a long way towards helping the children affected by the lockdowns and life in general.

 

 

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• #startup
• #australia
• #parenting
• #family
• #children
• #communication
• #health

Published on: 19th April 2022