The impact Komodo is having in schools in New Zealand

*Statistics in this article represent the findings in the last 12 months of data collected in Komodo schools based in Aotearoa, New Zealand. 

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It’s not surprising that mental health is having such an impact in school and education when we consider, research in the past 20 years suggests that approximately 50% of all mental health disorders appear for the first time before 14 years old  and 75% appearing before 18 years old. (Kim-Cohen et al., 2000). It is also not surprising that school staff feel overwhelmed at the task of supporting students in the wellbeing space when you consider that as many as 1 in 3 students are struggling with some kind of daily impairments due to mood or anxiety difficulties (Pascoe et al, 2020). 

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When we look more closely at what is going on in Aotearoa, New Zealand the latest Youth2000 research tells us that from the onset of puberty the incidence of mental health conditions increases, including depression, anxiety, psychosis and suicidal ideation; and the rangatahi of New Zealand have one of the highest rates of suicide in the developed world (Fleming et al., 2020). In addition to this, we see persistent and growing mental health inequity between Māori, Pasifika and other minority ethnic groups. We also know that stress, distress and suicide risk are generally elevated among sexuality and gender minority rangatahi (Fleming et al., 2020). However, despite the increasing awareness of the importance of wellbeing and mental health support, around one fifth (19%) of students reported that they had had difficulty getting help when they experienced stress and low mood in the last year (Fleming et al., 2020).

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So what can we do?

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Komodo combines the work of psychologists, developers and school support teams to produce proactive, tailored wellbeing solutions for school-wide wellbeing support. Our easy-to-use platform removes barriers giving students a voice, ease of access to support and provides teachers and educators with tools and data to take effective action. As a team, Komodo strives to find ways to improve school wide wellbeing in everything we do. From evidence-based practice in the creation of our survey question library, our psychologist built surveys to our software development and user-friendly platform. 

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At Komodo, we have evidence that we make a difference to school-wide wellbeing. Here in Aotearoa, New Zealand Komodo schools sent out just over 85,000 wellbeing surveys in the past year. 

What have we learnt?

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In the last year:

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• Just over 2,400 check-ins have been prompted through Komodo.
• Over 2,200 of these were Komodo- generated check-ins. That is, check-ins that are generated by our intelligent software which notices changes in student profiles and alerts staff to decline in wellbeing and the area of wellbeing that is declining.
• In addition to this, there have been over 250 student-requested check-ins. These are students who are proactively reaching out for additional support through the Komodo platform. Overtime, we are seeing an increasing trend in the number of student requested check-ins which suggests increasing trust and faith in using Komodo as a tool to get additional support.
• From a teacher workload perspective, our data shows that on average 80% of these student requested check-ins are followed up by teachers suggesting that Komodo is a useful and time efficient process in identifying which students need support. 
• In addition to check-ins, over 3,200 wellbeing comments have been left in the Komodo “feed” feature, with teacher response rates to these comments sitting at 85% on average. We see an increasing trend in the number of students and staff using this feature each term showing us the efficacy of this process as well as high engagement and trust in the Komodo process. This increasing trend also suggests that students are using the platform more than ever and are becoming more open and proactive in their communication about their wellbeing. 

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When you consider the level of engagement and the frequency at which students are using the student-initiative based features of Komodo (such as the comment feed and requesting check-ins) it is easy to see how Komodo removes barriers for access to additional support and provides a space for student voice. Research shows us that when schools prioritise student voice this acts as a mechanism for change and we see improvement in relationships, learning engagement, student self-worth and confidence and increased belonging and psychological safety.

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Interestingly, when it comes to what schools are measuring and what the focus of their student wellbeing initiatives are, we see some trends as well as variety:

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• Most commonly, schools are interested in measuring wellbeing metrics across social wellbeing, learning and achievement and emotional wellbeing.
• Less commonly, schools are making use of measures for wellbeing metrics across digital wellbeing and COVID-19.

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What these Komodo trends show us is that there are common areas of wellbeing that schools are interested in monitoring and measuring as well as unique differences depending on the events and experiences of the student and wider school community. This aligns with global research that tells us all schools will have a unique combination of factors affecting their students' wellbeing due to the unique student population that makes up each school community (Ford et al., 2021). Proudly, we have shown that Komodo is able to support a variety of school needs and work in collaboration with schools to create custom wellbeing solutions. 

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Want to learn more about how we can help your school with students’ wellbeing? Book a call today by clicking on the button below. We already work with several ISNZ member schools such as Huanui College, King’s College and St Andrew’s College who are using our proactive, data-driven wellbeing solutions to master school-wide wellbeing. Make real change, impact the lives of your students with Komodo wellbeing solutions.

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Book a call here

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References: 

• Fleming, T., Peiris-John, R., Crengle, S., Archer, D., Sutcliffe, K., Lewycka, S., & Clark, T. (2020). Youth19 Rangatahi Smart Survey Initial Findings: Introduction and Methods. Youth19 Research Group.
• Fleming, T., Tiatia-Seath, J., Peiris-John, R., Sutcliffe, K., Archer, D., Bavin, L., ... & Clark, T. (2020). Youth19 Rangatahi Smart Survey, Initial Findings: Hauora Hinengaro/Emotional and Mental Health.
• Ford, T., Degli Esposti, M., Crane, C., Taylor, L., Montero-Marín, J., Blakemore, S. J., ... & Kuyken, W. (2021). The role of schools in early adolescents’ mental health: findings from the MYRIAD study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 60(12), 1467-1478.
• Kim-Cohen, J., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Harrington, H., Milne, B. J., & Poulton, R. (2003). Prior juvenile diagnoses in adults with mental disorder: developmental follow-back of a prospective-longitudinal cohort. Archives of general psychiatry, 60(7), 709-717.

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