ADD/ADHD News
Empowering parents on their child's mental health care journey
A South African health tech start-up is working to improve the quality of care and support kids with mental health challenges receive by providing an app-based communication and tracking tool for parents.
The app, called Tracto, allows parents and teachers to collaboratively track behaviours and treatment progress of children with
mental health or neurodiverse conditions, including ADHD, autism, and anxiety. After allowing for more accurate, in-time
documenting of observations, Tracto then facilitates the convenient sharing of information with health care providers.
"We are actively engaging with investors to participate in our seed funding round. The funding will be used to accelerate our
product development and commercialisation initiatives including expanding our global footprint," says Michael van der Linde, co-
founder of Augmental Technologies.
Made available on app stores in July after two years of research and development, Tracto is already used by more than 200
parents to manage their kids' mental health care journeys. Two prominent South African primary schools, Table View Primary and
Shelanti Private School (rated one of the top remedial schools in South Africa) have also started using Tracto to improve
collaboration with parents to support their learners.
Van der Linde points out that, according to the latest Global Burden of Disease study (http://www.healthdata.org/gbd/2019), there
were 227 million children affected by mental health conditions in 2019.
"Although we have yet to understand the true impact the pandemic has had on the mental health of children and their families,
based on the feedback from the parents, schools and health care providers we closely work with, Covid-19 has undoubtedly taken
its toll on the mental health of children and their families."
In 2019, Augmental Technologies started collaborating with parents, teachers, health care providers and other experts to learn how
technology could be used to help children thrive living with mental health or neurodiverse conditions, including ADHD, autism, and
anxiety.
The close collaboration led them to identify three key problems:
Concerns over the quality-of-care decision-making:
Parents and teachers mentioned that they are typically asked to report on a child's symptoms or behaviour over the last six months
(or more) and felt that they were unable to objectively do so, due to not being able to accurately remember. Care providers also
mentioned that they often struggle to gain a holistic view of the child's care journey, which would support better care decisions.
Ineffective teamwork:
Supporting a child on their mental health care journey requires teamwork between parents, teachers, and care providers. This
communication is mostly paper-based and takes tremendous effort which sometimes hampers it from happening at all.
Access to affordable and timely care:
The team came to learn that having to wait months before getting your child the necessary care is a common problem faced by
parents both in South Africa and in developed countries all over the globe. The associated cost of care was also raised as a
serious concern by parents. This is often a reason for a child not gaining access to the appropriate care.
Transforming the way parents, teachers and care providers work together to support children
"Based on the learnings and confident that technology could play an important role in supporting children living with mental health or
neurodiverse conditions to thrive, we founded Augmental Technologies," says Van der Linde.
The team, consisting of Van der Linde, co-founder Herman Lintvelt, head of business development Eva Minkov, clinical advisor
professor Pieter Fourie and senior software engineer Hendrik Schalekamp, combined their expertise in software development,
mental health care, data science, and digital product management. The collaboration has one goal in mind.
"Our mission is to build a digital health platform that transforms the way parents, teachers and care providers work together to
support children on their mental health care journey."
The team ran pilot groups in South Africa and Canada to refine the product, and in early 2021 received pre-seed funding allowing
the founders to focus full-time on realising the mission.
Tracto was launched in July 2021 on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. Tracto aims to directly address the identified key problems:
To infinity and beyond
"Since our launch in July we already have over 200 parents (and growing) managing their children's mental health care journey
using Tracto and two prominent South African primary schools, Shelanti Private School and Table View Primary School, have
started using Tracto to improve collaboration with parents to support their learners," says Herman Lintvelt, co-founder of Augmental
Technologies..
"This is a great milestone for us, but only a small step in what we are ultimately planning."
Get involved
"Investors are invited to get in touch with us and discover how we can work together to accelerate our development and
commercialisation," says Lintvelt.
https://augmentaltech.com
Contact them: hello@augmentaltech.com OR hello@tracto.app
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