Web platform created by B’ville alum

By Ashley M. Casey

Staff Writer

The Baldwinsville Central School District is looking into partnering with a B’ville alumna’s company to improve students’ access to resources for mental health services, bullying and more. Dr. Erin Halligan-Avery, director of health promotion at the Rochester Institute of Technology, gave an overview of her ConcernCenter website at the Oct. 22 Board of Education meeting.

“ConcernCenter allows any student, parent, staff member, anyone in the community to search for resources in this district as well as in this community by indicating their concern,” said Halligan-Avery, who graduated from Baker High School in 2000.

ConcernCenter connects users with resources for a variety of issues and allows them to report instances of bullying, discrimination or safety concerns for a friend or loved one.

Halligan-Avery developed ConcernCenter when she worked at the University of Rochester, where she implemented a similar portal called the CARE Network. She said about half a dozen colleges and universities have contracted with the service. If the Baldwinsville Central School District decides to implement ConcernCenter, it would be the first K-12 school to do so.

“This is something that’s at the collegiate level, not the K-12 level,” Superintendent Matt McDonald said. “This is something very new.”

Currently, the B’ville schools website has a “tip line” located at bville.org/stopbullying.cfm where students or community members can report instances of bullying, violence or personal crisis for themselves or for someone about whom they are concerned. While someone in the district will respond within 24 hours, the tip line does not link to specific departments or contacts, as ConcernCenter does.

How ConcernCenter works

The web-based behavioral intervention platform has a simple, user-friendly interface that comes pre-loaded with 75 academic, social and mental and physical health concerns that range from anxiety to bullying to time management. The district could choose the order in which the topics and resources are listed, or they can be sorted alphabetically.

When a user clicks on a topic, ConcernCenter displays a brief description of the issue and the primary resource that can help with that particular concern. In addition to contact information, resources can also include photos, Google Maps and links to related resources.

For example, Halligan-Avery said, if a person searches for “suicidal thoughts,” the school district can list 911, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) and contact information for counselors and social workers in the district.

In addition to listing resources, users can send an email directly to a particular department or person who can help with their concerns. Halligan-Avery said the email form can be open to all or domain-restricted so only students and staff with bville.org email addresses can send messages.

Using Google Analytics, the district can track how many users are visiting the portal and which topics and resources they access most often.

BOE expresses questions, concerns

Baldwinsville Superintendent Matt McDonald said Halligan-Avery has presented ConcernCenter to the district’s mental wellness committee.

“They are 100 percent onto it,” he said of the committee’s response.

The school board, however, is looking for more information before the district commits to the portal.

“I’m not looking to do anything until after the new year,” McDonald said.

BOE member Matt Yager asked if ConcernCenter is mobile-friendly.

“People might be more apt to use it as opposed to going to a website,” Yager said.

“It’s accessible on all Android and iPad or i-devices,” Halligan-Avery said. “In colleges, a lot of times they have an app that’s associated with their college. So, the University of Rochester has a U of R app. This can be integrated with that U of R app so that when you click on that, you will see that icon so that it’s easily accessible via that route. If you had a Baldwinsville app, this could be coordinated with that.”

Another board member, Steve Schweitzer, asked if ConcernCenter would be a district-wide portal or if it would be specific to each school. Halligan-Avery said the pricing of the platform is tailored for the elementary, middle and high school levels because students’ needs and resources differ between age groups and buildings.

“Certainly, there might be some young kids who are using ConcernCenter to search for resources, but often and most likely … it’s the parents that are searching or a community member that’s searching,” Halligan-Avery said. “And you’re right, the concerns for a first- or second-grader might look very different from the concerns for a 10th- or 11th-grader.”

Halligan-Avery said while the collegiate model of ConcernCenter is a one-time purchase, she met with BOCES and found they prefer a subscription-based model for the K-12 platform.

For the first year, the price is $6,000 for high schools, $5,000 for middle and junior high schools and $4,000 for elementary schools. For the second, third and fourth years, the price is $4,000 per school regardless of level.

BOE member Kim Sullivan-Dec asked who would be responsible for maintaining the site and who would respond to reports. McDonald said principals, administrators, counselors and social workers would respond to crisis reports and tips. He suggested that the district’s cabinet could share on-call duties on school breaks, weekends or overnight. The cabinet includes McDonald, Deputy Superintendent Joe DeBarbieri, Director of Staff Relations/School Attorney Eric Wilson and Assistant Superintendent for Management Services Jamie Rodems.

McDonald said there would be a lot of legwork to upload resource information to the system, but once the initial work is done, maintenance of the information would be minimal.

School board member Jim Goulet expressed concern that students might flood the report system with minor problems — such as “When are we going to get new kickballs?” — leaving serious reports of students in crisis to get lost in the shuffle.

Halligan-Avery said schools can customize the system, and parents would be the primary users of elementary schools’ ConcernCenter, which would eliminate most of the frivolous reports Goulet feared.

“One of the big things about ConcernCenter is how you market it and how you talk about it,” she said. “We find at the collegiate level … people are using it in all the right ways.”

To explore a demo version of ConcernCenter, visit concerncenter.com/demo.