Vijay Solanki (pictured below), former SCA Chief Digital Officer and IAB CEO has teamed up with Luke Lewandowski, former Head of Digital Technology at SCA and clinical researcher/health entrepreneur, Francisco Fleming to launch ParentalEQ’s Parenting BackPack App.
The app is designed for parents who need support with the emotional and social development of children aged 5-12. ParentalEQ simplifies the best parent-child psychology and puts it into the palms of parents to take action.
The parent downloads the app, then picks key areas of focus such as ‘Emotions’ like, anxiety or anger; ‘Situations’ like divorce or school transition or a ‘Parenting Skill’. The app then curates content & activities to help the parent.
The key features are called Knowledge – consists of short audio ‘lessons’ for parents to understand the concepts as well as tools & techniques to support them. Then the parent goes on to work on Activities with their child. These are based on programs used by psychologists.
Solanki and team have been working with leading parent science experts in Australia including a professor of Child Development, clinical psychologists and education experts.
Earlier prototypes have gained traction both in Australia and the UK with over 6,000 downloads.
The team already have 35 modules live in the app with more being added every week
The service is live in a freemium format allowing some free access to both Knowledge and Activity modules and then moves into a paid monthly or annual subscription.
The app is available within the Apple App Store & Google Play Store or using this link: https://parentaleq.com/app
New features going live in May include monthly webinars with a child/parent expert and the ability to interact with a real counsellor to guide parents available for premium users.
Solanki added, “Our passion is to build a purpose-driven service. We saw that 50 per cent of mental health issues start before the age of 14 but most go unnoticed and undiagnosed. We also uncovered that whilst most parents understand physical well-being, the science of emotional well-being is less well understood. For parents seeking support, there’s a lot of friction. So we want to simplify the psychology so parents can use it. We believe that audio is a great medium to support parents.”
