Today we’d like to introduce you to Iuri Melo.
Hi Iuri, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
My story begins in Africa, then quickly shifts to Portugal where I was raised till the age of 15. After my parents divorced, I moved to America where I lived with my sister and brother-in-law in Provo, Utah. After a 2 year stint at Ricks College (currently BYU-Idaho), and then a 2-year service mission, I landed in Cedar City, Utah where I studied Psychology and later finished my Master’s degree in Social Work. I’m married with 5 children, and have been a private clinician for almost 20 years. In 2017 amidst a rash of suicide completions in Southern Utah, and really throughout the entire state, I was invited by a local principal to problem-solve ways to eradicate suicide and proactively prevent suicide.
At that time, I was busy running my own private practice as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, with a particular emphasis on working with adolescents. Justin Keate, principal at Desert Hills High School reached out to me in the hopes that together we could do more for students. He had just lost 2 of his students to suicide and one to an accidental death. His alarmed statement to me was, ‘I have to do more. I have to be more proactive instead of reactive, and find a way to check in with students.’ That was the moment of inception. The moment where the idea of SchoolPulse began to take shape, to what it is now, the best text-based student support service in the United States.
Our vision is fantastical… we seek to bless the human family. Our mission is to proactively deliver the most dynamic and successful psychology directly to students, while providing them with an affordable, accessible, and a real caring connection. Our objective is to encourage and compel joy. This is done through the delivery of our systematic stream of positivity, optimism, and the best positive psychology strategies available. The results? We prove our system every hour of every day. With thousands of messages as evidence that our systematic nudging tool works in raising the tide individually, and collectively at schools.
We are in 25 states and in over 100 schools. Our success and impact have not gone unnoticed, and we are currently looking to replicate our incredible success with veterans and active service members.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There’s no such thing as a smooth road in life. At best it’s a cliff with a few ledges here and there, and if we’re lucky, we’re tied onto a couple of anchors and supported by wonderful belayers who support and love us.
SchoolPulse is innovative, fresh, and hands-on, but schools are not always friendly to innovation, and hands-on interventions. Schools have become highly politicized arenas, where numerous agendas are constantly locked in conflict. Concepts that focus on social and emotional wellness are well-received in some states, and repudiated in others. Something we have also noticed, is that schools are fearful when it comes to leading out and trying new things. Schools and districts often glance ‘sideways’ to see who else is using SchoolPulse, before they even explore how our platform can systematically raise the climate and culture in their school, in addition to enhancing the wellness of their students, thus positively impacting their ability to learn and excel academically and socially. Early adopters of SchoolPulse are critical to our success. Nurturing those relationships and staying top-of-mind is essential to the present and future success of SchoolPulse.
Schools and Districts are not quick sells, and for the most part are not fast-moving organizations. There are layers, and school boards, and risk-management teams that must vet our content, and address the fact that our professional team is chatting with youngsters. Our sell cycle is long, persistent, and relationship-based. Even though our primary focus will remain in procuring schools and district deals, we’ve also started selling directly to parents in an effort to shrink that sales cycle, and to increase profitability. Our margins are razor thin with schools, but more manageable when sold individually to parents and other organizations. This has spurred the launch of CoPilot, which uses the same technology and philosophy, but is adapted to reaching adults who are veterans, active service members, faculty, and parents. There are many uses to SchoolPulse and CoPilot, and part of our challenge is to not spread ourselves too thin, and to ensure that our limited energy and resources are aimed where the highest potential sources of revenue are. Our objective is to grow responsibly, and even though there is a real possibility to raise additional capital and grow faster, that is not always the most sensible and real thing to do.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
SchoolPulse wants to save the American teen. We want every teen to live an extraordinary life, and we are actively contributing to that vision by providing them with and extraordinary psychology. At SchoolPulse we don’t wait for crisis, we proactively reach out to teens 3X’s a week with the best positive psychology skills and strategies, and actively encourage them to live honorable lives full of fun, adventure, meaning, relationships, and success. We are not fire extinguishers on the wall waiting for tragedy to happen, we actively contribute to the mental excellence and emotional endurance of every teen, by delivering fun and relevant content to them, and then providing them with real 1:1 live support from Licensed Professionals and trained paraprofessionals. Our data shows that when students participate and interact with our Positive Interaction Team (PIT Crew – how we affectionately call them), their sentiment levels raise from 40% to 60% percent. This is revolutionary, and it has the potential to change the world for the better.
Our focus is not mental illness, it’s mental excellence.
What are your plans for the future?
As we continue to expand our service to other schools and districts throughout the nation, we will also look to make additional partnerships and expand to higher education (Universities & Colleges where the need is even greater), and of course, we will continue to develop our ability to serve veterans and active service members who are currently losing 22 individuals a day to suicide.
The time is right. The cause is great. The impact is visible and encouraging. In the midst of a mental health crisis, and in the heels of a global pandemic, SchoolPulse is perfectly positioned to deliver an optimistic, and evidence-based tool to teens! Our objective is to deliver the best positive psychology skills and strategies to teens, and to instill a ‘happiness advantage’ in every one of them, thus encouraging a more successful interaction with the academic and social world that surrounds them. Teens open 98% of what we send them. We have the most listened-to Podcast for teens in the nation. Less than 1% opt out of our service. It’s time for us to evolve beyond a culture of reactivity and mental illness, and instead, focus on proactively building the psychological fitness and mental wellness of every child. SchoolPulse represents a systematic and sustainable way of doing exactly that.
Pricing:
- $4 per student/per month for school & district pricing
- $100 yearly for parents who wish the purchase the service individually for their children
- $10 per service member/month for veteran and active member
Contact Info:
- Website: schoolpulse.org
