Sonar
Sonar is a personal well-being companion for every student. They help school districts to support more students, 24/7 at a highly affordable cost. Specifically, Sonar provides i) chat based support to students with real trained people (assisted by AI), ii) escalation and referrals for students needing more intensive support and iii) data & insights to districts on their overall student population.
Product specs
- Student mental health focus areas: Develop life and character-building skills, Promote Social and School Connectedness, Equip Staff and Students to Recognize and Respond to Distress, Ensure Student Access to Effective Mental Health Treatment
- Product category: Check-ins, Coaching/mentorship, Crisis intervention, Screening/assessment, Self-guided activities
- Grade levels: 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade
- End user(s): Students
- Tiers of intervention: Tier 1, Tier 2
- District experience: <1,000 students, 1,000-5,000 students, 5,001-20,000 students
- Free version available?: Only paid versions of the product are available.
- Detail about availability: Sonar is available in all states, but is currently live in Michigan, Illinois, California, Oregon, Texas, and Arkansas.
Impact
- Intended outcome: Sonar is designed to help districts support the needs of every student, improve student mental health & well-being, and improve student academic and social outcomes.
- Demonstrated outcome:
- Engagement: 20-60%+ of students engage, 75% outside school hours
- Academic: improved trends in grades and attendance; reduced chronic absenteeism
- Behavioral: 75% improvement in well-being, 33% reduction in clinical referrals, 26% reduction in disciplinary rates
Privacy & Safety
- Privacy & security: Sonar is COPPA, FERPA and SOC2 compliant, and is not required to be HIPAA compliant since no personal health information is collected.
- Crisis protocols: Sonar has crisis protocols that enable immediate escalation to prioritize student safety as quickly as possible. Specifically, this means that if they identify a student in crisis, they continue to engage with the student, reach out to their emergency contacts, and if they do not reach them within 10 minutes, reach out to local authorities. They will inform the district after the fact, but do so at a time that does not increase their liability. Crisis protocols can be adapted based on district escalation policies.
Data provided to school/district
Sonar provides engagement data (rates, time of day), trends in challenges students are facing, insights into effective interventions, coordination for specific students requiring more intensive support.
Accessibility
- Web accessibility: We adhere to WCAG 2.1 AA.
- Language accessibility: Sonar supports all languages. Conversations can happen exclusively in that language if preferred by the student.
