Join us as we meet Margo Jordan, founder and CEO of Enrichly, who's flipping the script on childhood mental health. Instead of treating symptoms, she's building self-esteem from the inside out—reaching over 200,000 students through a gamified platform that kids actually want to use. From brick-and-mortar learning centers to a digital therapeutic that's now partnering with major health systems, Margo shares why self-esteem is the missing piece in mental health care, how she's hiding vegetables in the candy, and what it takes to bridge the pediatric behavioral health gap when 70% of US counties don't have a single child therapist. This is healthcare innovation that's both clinically sound and genuinely fun.
Margo Jordan, Founder & CEO, Enrichly
Megan Antonelli, Chief Executive Officer, HealthIMPACT Live
[0:01] INTRO: Welcome to Digital Health Talks. Each week we meet with healthcare leaders making an immeasurable difference in equity, access, and quality. Hear about what tech is worth investing in and what isn't as we focus on the innovations that deliver. Join Megan Antonelli, Janay Sharp, and Shahid Shah for a weekly no BS deep dive on what's really making an impact in healthcare.
[0:30] MEGAN ANTONELLI: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Digital Health Talks. This is Megan Antonelli, and I am so excited to be here with Margot Jordan, founder and CEO of Enrichly. I had the pleasure of meeting her at Health this past month. And today we're gonna talk about one of healthcare's most urgent challenges, one that we talk about fairly often on health impact, which is childhood mental health. Our guest Margot, as I said, is the founder and CEO of Enrichly, a digital therapeutic platform that's already transformed mental health outcomes for over 200,000 students. It's not another app. It's a closed loop clinical system that combines evidence-based therapy, gamification, and parental oversight to build self-esteem as the foundation for democratized access to mental health care where kids need it most. Hi, Margot, how are you today?
[1:20] MARGOT JORDAN: Hi, I am good. How are you, Megan?
[1:23] MEGAN ANTONELLI: Good. Was that stuff all accurate?
[1:25] MARGOT JORDAN: Yes, it was pretty accurate, yeah.
[1:30] MEGAN ANTONELLI: Good. Well, I am so happy that we're able to connect. I love when we go to a conference and we meet someone we connect with, and then we're immediately following up. It is, it's so easy to kind of get overwhelmed and come back and just get back into the loop of things. So I, I really appreciate you joining me on the show so we can talk about what you've done, what you're doing, and, and all about enrichment.
[1:53] MARGOT JORDAN: Yeah, well, I am so happy to be here. It was such a pleasure to meet you and Andrea while at Health. It was my first time there, but y'all are so friendly. The conversations were so warm. So I'm excited to chat with you today.
[2:04] MEGAN ANTONELLI: Yes, and you had the opportunity to pitch on the impact stage there. so congratulations for that cause it's quite an accomplishment to be on the stage there. But tell us a little bit, you know, about your, your background, your history. How did you come to find Enrichment?
[2:21] MARGOT JORDAN: Yeah, so I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and as a kid, I definitely say I kind of struggled with my own self-esteem. So honestly, I originally was born out of this personal experience and deep observation around how self-esteem impacts youth and their development. I actually joined the military as a way to combat the low self-esteem that I had. I ended up studying finance and then I kind of worked across youth programs and sort of different parts of, I would say America, but I consistently saw the same pattern that kids who really didn't believe in themselves really struggled in a lot of areas, so academics, relationships, even their own happiness. So I really kind of had this aha moment when I realized that self-esteem is not just a nice to have, but it's actually like this foundation to mental health, and no one was really systematically building it. When you think about like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, self-esteem is number 4 on this chart, so my thoughts were, why are we not just teaching children, you know, how to develop self-esteem.
[3:36] MEGAN ANTONELLI: Wow, that is amazing, and I didn't know that you had joined the military as well. That's amazing. it's, I mean, having seen you speak briefly and your composure, I'm not surprised. So kudos to you. Amazing. and it is, I mean, it's such a, you know, I think the mental health problems of our youth in this country, you know, it's becoming, you know, it's just, it's getting to this point where, you know, we have to do something and the access level is becoming less and less, right? I mean, just harder and harder for people to get good help for their kids and for kids, you know, to take advantage of it in a way that they do because it's or the in a way that they want to. So tell us a little bit about the approach and how it's different and, and, and, you know, what that looks like, for, for the child.
[4:27] MARGOT JORDAN: Yeah, so when I, when I set out, when I saw I had this aha moment, I really wanted to create this platform that was both engaging just as it was therapeutic. And because self-esteem is like the route to anxiety, depression, bullying, low academic achievement. So many other things, like these challenges stem from how a child sees themselves. So if we're not fixing the mirror that they're looking into, we're only treating symptoms. And I wanted to create a platform that actually builds from the inside out. I don't think when I was in school, I even knew what self-esteem was. I didn't understand what that was until I was an adult and then as I understood how important it was, I actually started to just think, well, why, why are we not just teaching self-esteem? I actually built a brick and mortar initially back in 2017 or 2016, and that was a self-esteem learning center. It was, it was an amazing center. We impacted a little over 10,000 youth around Houston, and then COVID actually shut us down, but during that time we had a survey that we were using from the Center for Disease Control's website, and it was a self-esteem assessment built on a Rosenberg scale. So the CDC is actually using this and deploying this, and it's a way to measure self-esteem and I just sort of thought, why not just measure our programs with this tool because it's, you know, most widely used and then we actually saw we had this statistically significant improvement in one's self-esteem. We would do pre and post. I recruited a couple of educational psychologists from local universities, they helped me with the research and now I want to say, fairly recently, we recruited a clinical psychologist from Universal Health Services and you know, he was really blown away with the approach of only focusing on self-esteem as a initiator and, he had the same thoughts, honestly, like, and he's been doing this for decades, he said, well, you know, self-esteem is definitely the root to a lot of issues that I see, but it's just not systematically taught. And that's why we decided to focus on self-esteem initially, but you know, as the platform grew, we decided to focus on, other assessment tools and other engagement tools.
[6:53] MEGAN ANTONELLI: You know, I feel like I should know more about this and have an understanding, but as you said, it's not taught, right? It's not taught in schools, but what is the, you know, As, as you're looking at the kids and, and kind of doing the assessments and then how you can, you know, kind of create that impact, you know, it does seem like it, it is a, a specific area where, where you can have impact, which is often more difficult with mental health. Talk a little bit about that in terms of, you know, why I guess why self-esteem is something that, that works in terms of the system.
[7:31] MARGOT JORDAN: So, for us, self-esteem works because we're tapping into something that that child has not really been exposed to, and it's really honestly not just a child, it's a person. If we have gotten so many like requests from even adults when they see the platform and how it focuses on self-esteem, they say, well, can you do this for adults too? Because I'm pretty sure I can use this, and honestly it's working because we're teaching that person how to love and value themselves. If everything forms around that, how that person loves themselves, how they care about themselves, how they talk to themselves, that is going to be shown externally and we always tell our kiddos, everything starts internally. If you're having a bad day, you wake up and all of a sudden like your your hair is all over your head, you're just not feeling it, you want to go back under the blanket, but you're forced to get up and be in the world and show your face. How do you think that person is going to show up in the world? They're not going to show up as their best and brightest self. So therefore that's going to take it. That's going to affect how they interact with other people. And it's not just like this for children, it's like this for adults, right? If you wake up as an adult and you're like, I'm just not feeling myself today. Like that is gonna impact how you show up with your colleagues, for students, how they show up with their peers, how they interact with their parents, all of that is stemming from how that person is feeling about themselves as opposed to they wake up feeling amazing, they say positive affirmations in the morning, they look at the world with a big bright eye and they are really loving themselves, that is going to demonstrate itself externally. So now everyone they meet is gonna meet this bubbly person that's smiling and have a great day and you, you have no idea how much of a difference that makes from someone who looks at themselves in a sort of not loving themselves type of way to, OK, I love myself and everything that I do and I know I can accomplish whatever I set my mind to. And honestly, this is why we see that richly works.
[9:43] Mhm.
[9:44] MEGAN ANTONELLI: And so in terms of their experience of what they're doing to kind of, that you're educating them about self-esteem and building self-esteem. I know that there's a gamification element to the, to the platform. Talk about that a little bit in terms of how you can, you know, sort of get the kids involved that way.
[10:02] MARGOT JORDAN: Yeah, so it was funny because when we transition away from the brick and mortar. The brick and mortar was so much fun. It was an experience, right? And I had to put this, this experience online and I'm like, OK, well how do I do that? Because I don't want kids to read like a boring PDF or look at some boring slides, so what do I do? And I thought, well, kids love video games. I have kids and they're always playing games. So I thought to myself, well, I think I can just like put all of this curriculum into a game. I can build these characters and these characters can talk about self-esteem, etc. etc. So imagine a child is logging into Enrichly and they step into a game world that really mirrors their real life challenges, but it's actually giving them the tools to conquer those challenges, right? So this is avatars, quests, progress tracking. So we are making this therapy fun. So gamification really lowers the resistance and then kids are engaging a lot more deeply when they feel like they're playing, not being treated. So we have our clinical psychologist, my co-founder, his background is in psychology. They create the curriculum and make sure that it reaches the objectives. We have these therapeutic principles, embedded cognitive behavior therapy, positive psychology. They weren't all of the games, but kids wouldn't know that they're being treated because it's a game for them. And that's how the experience works.
[11:28] Yeah, I think that that's, it's so critical.
[11:31] MEGAN ANTONELLI: And I think in terms of, you know, having young kids myself and knowing that what they're willing to engage in, what they're willing to do, especially for their own, you know, sort of self help of of of it all, You know, it's got to be fun, you know, I mean, they're, they're so, you know, sort of in these dopamine cycles that are, you know, but also having negative impact on their self-esteem. So to at least replace it with that. And I, I mean, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, you know, there's so many books out there, there's so much about this adolescent mental health crisis and what screens have to do with it. But on the other hand, very little to say this is how you help, this is how you do go on a digital diet in your home, you know, and, and things like that. And these are things that you can replace that have a positive impact because the screens aren't going away, we're going deeper and deeper into this. So ensuring that the screens that they are engaging with are good for them, I think is such a critical piece of that which is what excites me so much. About the fact that you've had such great impact. So, you know, I read, you know, over 200,000 students. Tell us a little bit about how you're getting to, to those kids. Are you partnering with schools? Are you partnering with insurance companies? What's your sort of the, the business to, to enrich Lee?
[12:54] MARGOT JORDAN: Yeah, so when we initially launched, we had a lot of partnerships with schools and districts, you know, it was funny, we had a lot of principals and superintendents to come into our brick and mortar and they were hosting things for either their child, or their students and they said, hey, can you come and do this at my school? And it was very, kind of, I wasn't expecting it, but the first interaction that we had with the school was when they asked us to come in with 500 5th graders and they wanted us to deliver a self-esteem development program to them. This was pre-technology, so because we had that experience with those schools in those districts, when we introduced the technology and the games, they absolutely loved that. So that allowed us to go into these schools. We built a very low cost prototype, it probably was about less than $20,000 that I spent on this, and that actually led to our first, really our first six-figure contract, second six-figure contract, and about almost a million dollars ARR just, you know, focusing on schools and districts because this was a need, this was right after COVID, funding was flowing, but then it stopped and we had to make a pivot and now we actually sell the same tool, we just sort of reconfigured the technology, but we sell it into health systems so we actually just partnered with Wellstar Health out of Georgia, their community health team, they were really looking at how they can bridge that pediatric behavioral health gap and originally just sort of is a plug and play option for them. We offer training to their community health workers and then they go deploy the technology into their communities, so this is churches, Boys and Girls Club, Girls Inc. schools that they work with, Rotary Clubs, and all of these are organizations that focus on youth in some capacity and now they get to offer these self-esteem programs powered by our technology where at the end of the day. Our partners, and these are the payers, health systems, they get this really cool impact analysis report at the end of the year to say because you're, you know, this is what you did, you impacted 10,000 kids, you saw a 90% reduction in self or reduction in anxiety and depression, you saw a 78% increase in self-esteem. And then we also include like some social determinants of health, but they get these really cool reports that they really have to demonstrate for either their health system, IRS in order to make sure they're they're keeping that status, and you know, long term goal, we want to work with health plans because we know we're helping to save money when it comes to screening early, intervening early, we're more preventative versus reactive, but yeah, now we mainly work with health systems and we help them to plug in our solution to bridge the pediatric behavior health gap.
[15:59] Amazing, yeah.
[16:01] MEGAN ANTONELLI: And that's, I mean, I think the, the school fit obviously, so clear, especially coming out of the pandemic and, and what was needed, but the, the health system to get them involved, you know, that, you know, sort of scales it in, in such a different way. Is there, what is that kind of point or that threshold of need where they are bringing in in richly, and is there, and how is the clinician then involved?
[16:28] MARGOT JORDAN: Yeah, so there's honestly, there are two entry points. So with like our community health teams, they're looking at how they can deploy more behavioral health into the community. So they simply pay for them richly to be deployed across their communities and they send someone out to implement the programs. However, within another vertical in the health system is a pediatric service line and this is where the clinicians are more involved because think of a child that comes in for a well check visit and if they're over a certain age, they're required to give that child a mental health assessment. So now they're using our platform to deploy that assessment, but now we get to pair them instantaneously with a gamified intervention that was created by a child therapist because there's a lack in 70% of countries around the US they don't have a child therapist. So right now when a child is flagged, right, they give the referral to the parent and say, OK, you can call this therapist for your child's anxiety or depression issues. And then they're having to wait 6 to 7 months, sometimes longer. Sometimes parents don't even follow up. So now as opposed to like them missing that opportunity altogether, you get the assessment and then we pair you with an intervention that's personalized to whatever that child's struggles are.
[17:47] That's great.
[17:48] MEGAN ANTONELLI: Yeah, I mean, it's an incredibly difficult, path to navigate, you know, unfortunately, I have many friends who have struggled with trying to get their kids' mental health help, and it's just, you know, affordability, access. You know, just, you know, even here in LA, like just not enough, no one has time to meet with anybody because everybody needs it so much and there's just not, not that there. And then there's the process of getting these kids to actually go to that when, you know, they're, they're starting to understand that, you know, telemedicine is a thing that they can see doctors and physicians online, so being able to. You know, access that type of help over the phone, you know, through their phone and through their devices, is amazing. Now, on that flip side, you have the screen time issues and and things like that. Where do you, you know, where do you guys sit on that in terms of how that works, particularly if we say, well, the phone is, is maybe part of the cause of your self esteem problem. So, we need to take away. But of course, it's. It's not the phone itself, it's not the device, it's where they go, right?
[18:53] MARGOT JORDAN: Exactly. It's where they go. Yeah.
[18:56] So honestly, and this is what I tell parents and even some clinicians, it's like, we're not asking for more screen time, we're asking for better screen time because we know that the devices are not going anywhere. Children are going to have a tablet, they're going to have a phone in their hand. So if your child is already spending these hours on YouTube and TikTok. Why not, or wouldn't you rather have them spend 10, 15, 20 minutes on a platform that's actually building their mental health. We actually did something with the government of Abu Dhabi and there was a parent parent workshops that we were doing and the parents were walking up and her daughter was really interested in the game, so we let her demo the game and then we were wanting the parent to sign up. And the mom said, well, I only let her have her tablet on Saturdays for a couple of hours and she usually spends that time watching YouTube. So I asked the kid like right there, I said, OK, would you rather watch YouTube or would you rather play Richly? And she literally said, Oh, I would much rather play Richly. And it was such a cool thing to see the kid actually say that and it wasn't just something that we made up.
[20:04] Yeah.
[20:05] MEGAN ANTONELLI: Well, it's an interesting thing too. I mean, I guess I've been thinking about these digital diets and what does that mean? And, you know, kind of, I mean, as I've got kids, you know, my son is in high school, and it's like you can't, I can't take his phone away. It, it is his lifeline. I mean, I could take his phone away. But it, you know, I mean, it's how he gets out of the house. It's how he has a social life. So, where you look to. To try to control it. And maybe there's a way, I don't know whether it's part of the enrichly, you know, sort of, but like, if they do more time with on Enrichly, they can earn time on the other apps, you know, much the same way as like you eat your vegetables, you can have, you know.
[20:48] MARGOT JORDAN: It's funny, we try to, we tell parents, we are hiding the vegetables in the candy, right, right.
[20:57] MEGAN ANTONELLI: The broccoli and the muffins, exactly. Been doing it for a while, yeah, so no, but so it's so interesting. And then as you, you know, kind of begin to explore the avenues to the, the payer side of this, getting, getting involved with the health plans, what's, what's sort of next? Where, where do you go beyond the healthcare systems and the, and the employers? What, what's your, You know, in terms of this model, and I guess to some degree, another question I have is, is there a particular age that you're focused on or is that, you know, and and is that part of that pipeline?
[21:35] MARGOT JORDAN: Yeah, so to answer the first half of your question, which is like, where do we go? Honestly, our goal is to become approved Medicaid vendors in all 50 states. Not saying that we are billing Medicaid directly right now, but we want to be seen as something that is compliant with Medicaid standards. We already have our MPI and all of our providers and partners, they are the ones that are typically billing Medicaid for our platform because there are CPT codes that they can use to get that reimbursement when it comes to like the medical diagnostic and then them actually assigning those interventions to that child. We are right now, we're focused on K through 12, however, we wanna be able to offer adult content on the platform, and that means, and we kind of started, but this is a closed loop system that cannot just be used for a child, it can also be used for adults because adults have, you know, just as many mental health issues, if not more, than children. So, you know, being that go to closed loop system that's really helping to improve outcomes, partnering with payers in every state to deploy a simple solution. We're definitely cutting costs when it comes to the behavioral health workforce because you don't need people to run the platform. The people already built the interventions, they live on the platform, so we don't have to hire, employees. We don't have the 1099. A lot of these telehealth platforms, which are great, but they're, they're very reactive. Our solution is proactive, it's preventative, and it's really meant to be sort of like a value-based care solution. And something that can grow with that individual because it constantly personalizes the experience for that person. So yeah, approved vendor status, really partnering with payers, one of our goals in the near term is for some of the states that we're working with is having Medicaid deploy richly amongst their FQHCs because we know that they don't really have the funding to pay, but they have the one of the highest needs, so you know, partnering with payers, getting this into the hands of as many kids as possible, our school-based programs, we have not tapped into that yet, however, I know that it's, it's, it's on the roadmap and it's, it's coming, we actually just won something recently called Prime Health Innovation Challenge of Colorado, and that led us to now partner with one of Medicaid's arms in Colorado to pilot our program so that we can then obviously show the or demonstrate the outcomes so we can finally have a Medicaid partner alongside us.
[24:31] MEGAN ANTONELLI: Right. Well, it's, I mean, I think there's so much opportunity there. I mean, with the schools, you know, whether it's through, you know, I know here in LA there was a big push towards mindfulness, right? And I think it was Goldie Hawn's program with the meditation, and all got into the schools and it was very, you know, it was very widely adopted for a bit and then I think the pandemic happened and now it's just not as much there or, or in some cases fully embedded. But when you think about the guidance counselors, and how often, you know, these schools do or don't have enough guidance counselors to meet the needs, but also, do kids fully take advantage of it, right? And, and if they had more tools in the toolkit of what they could do besides, oh, come in and meet with the guidance counselor, which, you know, feels, and frankly, is, you know, sort of that 1950s, you know, solution of it, you know, and, and that no kid really wants to do. They, you know, what's it's the guidance counselors literally sitting next to the principal's office. So why does it feel like the right, you know, the, the right best solution, where they and to sort of have these other options is so good. And then in terms of health systems, so with our audience being predominantly health systems, if they're listening, what's the way for them to get involved? Like what, you know, do they reach out? Do they get a sort of, what's that right path?
[25:54] MARGOT JORDAN: So, go to our website, it's www.enrichly.world and just request a demo. You can also email me, Margot@ enrichly.world, and, you know, see how we can be embedded into your health system. We love working with pediatric service lines and community health teams. It's a really great solution for both verticals when it comes to cutting costs and when it comes to helping to meet their community health need assessment goals. And those are the, I want to say the best ways. You can also reach out on LinkedIn, Margot Jordan.
[26:32] MEGAN ANTONELLI: Perfect. Yeah, no, I think there's so many, there's just so many avenues for this. I mean, we've been partnering with a number of different, organizations that are tackling this, and I just think, you know, while there's a lot of attention and a lot of discussion about the problems, there's, there's not a lot of solutions and that even if the tools are there, getting access to them and, and making sure that they're available, You know, it's tough. So I appreciate you being here and joining us, today, and I encourage our audience to, to reach out to Margot. She's incredibly, accessible and, a, a great person to talk to and, and kind of learn about this, this world and this, and, and what can be done. So, thanks so much for joining us, Margot.
[27:13] MARGOT JORDAN: Thank you, Megan. Thank you so much for having me. And I am excited about the future of Amrichley.
[27:21] MEGAN ANTONELLI: Yes, me too. We'll have to see you in Houston soon. And on a health impact stage very soon. So, I appreciate it. And to our listeners, thanks so much for listening. do not hesitate to reach out to Margot or me to get in touch. And, you know, I think there's, there's so much for us to, to do in this space, to help our kids and to certainly help, you know, around self-esteem and building that, for, for our children. So thanks again for listening. This is Megan Antonelli, and that's Health Impact digital health talks signing off.
[27:56] OUTRO: Thank you for joining us on Digital Health Talks where we explore the intersection of healthcare and technology with leaders who are transforming patient care. This episode was brought to you by our valued program partners: Automation Anywhere, revolutionizing healthcare workflows through intelligent automation. Netera, advancing contactless vital signs monitoring. Elite groups, delivering strategic healthcare IT solutions. Cello, securing healthcare identity management and access governance. Your engagement helps drive the future of healthcare innovation. Subscribe to digital health talks on your preferred podcast platform. Share these insights with your network, and follow us on LinkedIn for exclusive content and updates. Ready to connect with healthcare technology leaders in person? Join us at the next health impact event. Visit healthimmpactforum.com for date and registration. Until next time, this is Digital Health Talks, where change makers come together to fix healthcare.