Transforming Child and Family Mental Health Accessibility with Little Otter

author image

By Leza Ogren, VP of Clinical Operations

Rebecca Egger

“Imagine a world where you don’t have to tell the same story over and over each time you call a new provider, each time you bring in a new sibling. Instead, you have one source of truth that says, ‘this is my family.'”

Rebecca Egger – CEO & Co-Founder, Little Otter

For decades, kids have not received the mental health help they need. One in five children and adolescents has an impairing mental health disorder. Yet only 50% of kids ever receive mental health treatment, and even fewer receive evidence-based treatment that works. Little Otter’s approach to childhood mental health treatment is rooted in measurement-based care. Now available for direct booking on Navigate & Connect in certain markets, it’s well positioned to empower adolescent patients and their families with real-time access to specialized behavioral health care. We recently sat down with Rebecca Egger, CEO and co-founder of Little Otter, to learn more about the mission of the organization and why measurement-based care is vital.

The work Little Otter is doing in the pediatric and child mental health space is so important and so needed in today’s health care ecosystem. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) found that more than half of parents and caregivers express concern over their children’s mental well-being. Can we talk about what led you to found the company with your mother and what you set out to achieve?

What we say about Little Otter is that this is a company built by families, for families. At our core, it is our mission to reimagine child and family mental health. Our company was founded to try to change the way that we talk about pediatric and child mental health and to speak about it instead as a family mental health crisis. How do we connect families with access to the right levels of support to meet their unique needs?

Mental health treatment accessibility is an issue right now for patients of any age. Only about 20% of children with mental, emotional or behavioral disorders receive care from a specialized mental health care provider. Can you share with us your views on what needs to happen in order to alleviate these challenges?

It’s all about increasing access to quality care. I think the huge takeaway is that this collaboration is a significant step forward in our mission and making it so most of our families can access high-quality mental health resources previously available to only a select few.

At Little Otter, we want to create a world where every single person gets the mental health care they need — right when issues first present. How do we identify these issues? Luckily, this is where we are most aligned with Lucet and why this collaboration is so meaningful, because we are focused on connecting people to providers, but also value the connections to quality and culturally competent care. Are we identifying what this kid actually needs and matching them to the right type of care? To date, there has not been an efficient way of tackling that problem.

Since the pandemic began, behavioral health has surged to the forefront of many people’s minds. Has the company’s focus shifted at all since you started in 2020?

I wouldn’t say that we have shifted our focus, but I would say that we are always learning and incorporating new knowledge with how we tackle whole-family mental health accessibility challenges. Over time, we’ve realized that we are not in just a child mental health crisis. We are in a family and — especially, I would say — maternal mental health crisis, and we need to be addressing that alongside our pediatric solutions. So, I think the biggest change is how we’ve evolved to become a one-stop shop for whole family mental health — supporting couples, parents, maternal figures, guardians, siblings, children and infants because all those things are interconnected. Families don’t want to have to continue to search for new resources. With every new doctor you see, there’s the possibility that you lose continuous support and care. This is where technology comes in, and where Little Otter is focused. Imagine a world where you don’t have to tell that same story over and over again each time you call a new provider, each time you bring in a new sibling. Instead, you have one source of truth that says, “this is my family.”

What do you want people to know most about Little Otter?

The first is our focus on the whole family. We have built a product and are continuing to build a product that serves the mental health needs of every member of the family together.

The other thing, and I think this is important, is emphasizing our focus on outcomes and data. As an industry we still have a lot to learn in this space and there’s opportunity for growth and improvement. The only way we are going to do this is by collecting data. My background is in product and tech, which is why I am so excited to work in collaboration with organizations like Lucet to deliver more efficient standardized care. Perhaps lower-cost interventions have the same clinical outcomes, but we’re only going to be able to prove that if we have the data to back this up.

So, let’s talk a little bit more specifically about Lucet and Navigate & Connect. What aspects of the platform are you most excited about, and how do you envision advancing Little Otter’s mission to reimagine child and family mental health?

Navigate & Connect streamlines the family experience by offering one location where families can access all their needs.

In addition, it offers real-time insights into behavioral health resource availability to solve the problem of long provider wait lists. Something I always talk about is that if you are two years old, waiting six months for an appointment is a fourth of your life. That’s huge. And there are significant developmental changes occurring during that time. Every single week as a young child that you’re waiting to connect to care is seven days wasted, which can have a significant impact on your future development.

The more we can reduce that time with Lucet’s Navigate & Connect, the bigger impact we’re going to have with less need for high intervention. That’s where this partnership really comes in. Making sure families get the care they need, right when they need it, is so critical.

The fact that we can provide quality care with partners like Lucet is a massive, massive step forward. This is saying, yes, mental health should be treated like physical health. This is as important. We’re going to get the outcomes. You know it’s going to be worth it to invest in this population.

What would you most want people to know about this collaborative relationship?

It’s all about increasing access to quality care.  I think the huge takeaway is that this collaboration is a significant step forward in our mission and making it so most of our families can access high-quality mental health resources previously available to only a select few.

Rebecca Egger is CEO and co-founder of Little Otter. Leza Ogren is vice president of clinical operations at Lucet, The Behavioral Health Optimization Company.

The behavioral healthcare industry is constantly evolving. Subscribe to our newsletter today.