Smart Support for Student Well-Being

Overview: Connecting Students to Counselors for Effective Monitoring of their Social and Emotional Needs

It was an early-stage start-up focused on increasing access to social-emotional support for students. The company helped school counselors and social workers engage with students while effectively monitoring their social-emotional needs.

Challenges

Since the website deals with sensitive data related to students’ moods and counseling information, ensuring data privacy and security was a major challenge.

The software needed to manage different types of users (students, counselors, and administrators) across various educational institutions. Ensuring that each user type has access only to their relevant data requires precise access control mechanisms, which can be complex to implement and maintain.

As a startup, the client had concerns about how well the tool would perform and whether the app could handle increased traffic and data. Another challenge was integrating real-time communication features. Stream’s capabilities needed to be effectively implemented to ensure smooth, real-time interactions without compromising performance.

Our Approach

The client had full trust in COS to deliver an MVP based on the idea and we surpassed the client’s expectations by getting traction in the market as well as increasing the number of users every week.

The idea behind the app was to provide counseling services to students, and the solution can quickly capture the moods provided by each enrolled student.

Considering the sensitivity of the data provided by each user, we used security frameworks that generated greater trust for the shared and stored data. As each registered educational institution had 3 types of members (students, counselors, institution administrators), each had access only to their specific data of interest. The enrollment flow was managed by Google sign-in and Auth0, which by default provided trust for login credentials.

Outcome

• User Growth: The MVP met and surpassed the client’s expectations by gaining traction in the market and seeing a consistent increase in the number of users.
• Data Security and Trust: By implementing robust security frameworks and using trusted authentication services like Google sign-in and Auth0, the client benefited from a high level of trust among users and stakeholders.
• Real-Time Interaction: With the integration of Stream’s capabilities, the app allowed for instant communication between counselors and administrators, enhancing the responsiveness and effectiveness of the services.