‘We’ve been in a mental health crisis even before COVID-19’: Little Otter Founder

Little Otter Founders Dr. Helen Egger and Rebecca Egger, join Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Kristin Myers to discuss mental health care for children and families.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: It's Mental Health Awareness Month. And we talk a lot about mental health for adults, but what about children? Now we want to discuss that in this conversation as part of our Road to Recovery segment, sponsored by Wells Fargo. We're joined now by Dr. Helen Egger and Rebecca Edgar, founders of the pediatric mental health company Little Otter.

So I'm curious to know, and I'm going to start here with you, Dr. Egger, why is pediatric mental health so important? Is it only for children that have experienced some kind of trauma? Or is it, as we say for adults, really for everyone?

HELEN EGGER: Yeah. Mental health, just like for adults, is very common. So one out of five children have an impairing mental health disorder, and that is children from ages 2 to 18. And the real reason that we founded Little Otter is that we've been in a mental health crisis even before COVID hit. Only 20% of children with an impairing mental health disorder get any kind of mental health care, and that really is not acceptable.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And Rebecca, can you share with us how you can help the younger set digitally? 'Cause I think, you know, they're very savvy when it comes to technology, but when it comes to things like doctors appointments, I think-- we think adults would be able to handle it a little bit better. So how are you dealing with that balance of, you know, kids getting the most out of digital care in this space?

REBECCA EGGER: Yeah. So we are really focused on a family-centered approach, so bringing in parents for every step of the process, and making sure that we're hiring providers who are excellent at providing virtual care. So we actually see providing virtual care to be an asset, and something that we think means that we can provide care in a child's and family's home and give them exactly what they need, when they need it.

KRISTIN MYERS: I'm curious to know how pediatric mental health isn't just good for children, but also for the parents and also just for the families.

HELEN EGGER: Absolutely.

REBECCA EGGER: Helen, I'll let you take that.

HELEN EGGER: Yeah. I mean-- I'll take that. Yeah. So we say, you know, that first of all, there's no health without mental health, and that any child mental health is really fully linked to-- to the family's mental health. So first of all, we know that when parents are struggling either in their role as parents or themselves having challenging mental health problems, that's going to have a huge impact on their children. We also know that if the parents of a child are not getting along and their relationship has a lot of discord, that it's gonna be hard for them to align as parents to help their kids.

So that's why at Little Otter we provide parenting specialists to focus on supporting parents and kids on day-to-day parenting challenges. We have therapists providing mental health care to kids 2 to 12 years old. And then we also provide couples counseling. Again, our focus at Little Otter is on what is needed to support the whole family's mental health.

And the other thing that's important about that is we're not saying, here's the problem child. There isn't ever just a problem child. This is really about a whole family and about what everyone needs.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: That's so true, right? I mean you have to have--

HELEN EGGER: Yes.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: --that support system for-- for the whole family.

HELEN EGGER: Absolutely.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Rebecca, I know that you all took a big step forward here with Little Otter in-- in closing a funding round for $4.2 million. I see it's a pre-seed and seed funding round led by Torch Capital. Tell us how you hope to put that capital to use.

REBECCA EGGER: Yeah. Well, most of it went to you know, our successful launch that we're doing today, and we're focusing on making sure that our product is amazing for families in California so we can start to expand across the US and reach all of the families who need us. We know how big the mental health crisis is especially past the, you know, because of the pandemic, and we're looking to support more families.

KRISTIN MYERS: I'm curious to know, and this is to both of you-- perhaps, doctor, you can go first. As you were just mentioning, Rebecca, about how the pandemic really just brought to light so many mental health issues that people need to pay attention to. Curious to know if there were any challenges as you both went out to secure that type of funding as founders. Some of the hurdles that you both faced.

HELEN EGGER: Yeah, well, I'll start and then toss it to Rebecca, 'cause I think the first piece is that there certainly are increased mental health needs 'cause of the pandemic. But the pandemic also really showed us both in the medical field and the mental health field as well as for consumers that telemedicine works, and that telepsychiatry works.

Before joining Little Otter, I was Chair of Child Psychiatry at NYU Langone, so I have a lot of experience on how to deliver high quality telecare. So in some ways, we think that there were advantages of-- of us starting Little Otter during the pandemic, because people finally really understood that teletherapy works.

REBECCA EGGER: And I would also love to add to that. It's also helped in our relationship with providers and hiring providers, because they're more comfortable with providing high quality telemedicine services. So I think it's been a huge benefit. We always wanted to be fully virtual. We felt like that was the only way to reach the amount of families who needed our care. But we definitely got some tailwinds because of this year.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right. Dr. Helen Egger, Rebecca Egger, founders of Little Otter. Thank you both so much for joining us today about this very important topic as Mental Health Awareness Month kicks off.