An SMS-based mental health course for Busy adults
Case study Context:
Designing educational content for parents of children ages 0-5 within a pediatric mental health app, assigned by coaches as part of care.
Challenge:
Ad-hoc chats with coaches are informative in the moment, but resources get lost or repeated
Parents want tips they can remember, revisit, and respond to
Engagement with traditional e-learning is hard when parents have limited time and attention
Pilot design should have built-in feedback mechanism to inform iteration and future development
MY ROLE:
After testing a few early course formats with low engagement, I identified SMS (text messages) as a more effective way and designed “micro-lessons” that fit naturally into parents’ daily lives.
Translated complex therapeutic resources into something parents actually used between sessions.
Built and tested an MVP, measured for positive signals, then partnered with engineers to bring the experience into production.
What I did:
For parents
Delivered short, text-based “micro-lessons” on therapeutic tips to support their children
Personalized recommendations based on onboarding feedback and report
Broke down concepts into simple, actionable steps parents could try in the moment
Designed messages to feel conversational and relatable, using real-life examples
Made it easy to engage with content through quick replies and lightweight feedback
For clinicians
Reduced the need to repeat foundational guidance across multiple parent interactions
Translated resources into a format that could be consistently delivered and measured
Extended support between sessions through reusable content
Provided insight into whichtips worked for parents and their children
Across teams
Tested early course formats and recognized low engagement as a core issue
Created low-lift MVPs to test hypotheses before moving into resource-consuming production
Designed logic branches based on parent responses and severity of behavioral health case
Iterated quickly based on engagement and feedback
Partnered with engineers to integrate into native content management system
Outcomes:
Achieved 95% completion rate in pilot SMS courses
Received 77% positive feedback from participating parents
Validated SMS-based micro-lessons as a scalable alternative to traditional e-learning formats
Lay the foundation for tailored, algorithmic content delivery
Reflections:
This work made clear that educational content competes for limited attention just like everything else. Valuable information must still fit into everyday life in order to be received. While parents were hungry for guidance, they were far more likely to engage when it aligned with their routines.
This work also tested what it meant to scale mental health support. It tested what 1:1 therapist conversations could prioritize within short ad-hoc chat sessions, and what could be outsourced to our content library. It tested allowing our therapists to prioritize in-the-moment de-escalation, questions, and judgment calls for more nuanced cases.
Finally, this work showed that ideas could be tested, prototyped, and validated using simple, existing tools in unconventional ways. It reinforced that hypotheses should be tested before cost-heavy development, rapidly gathering insights and direction before investing in building.