PeerKnect: An app that creates social connections...

Emily Bruce is the CEO and Founder of Determinism, LLC, the developer of the platform PeerKnect. She is a Board Certified and licensed Behavior Analyst (BCBA, LBA) in the State of Tennessee with an M.S., in Psychology. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband and two children and was educated at both David Lipscomb and Tennessee State Universities. She is currently in her final dissertation year as a doctoral student in the field of behavior analysis at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

Emily Bruce. Co-Founder of PeerkNect

Prior to committing full time to PeerKnect as the CEO, she owned and operated a small Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) practice in Nashville where she applied her therapeutic skills and scientific knowledge of behavior to work with children and families of children with special needs.  As a BCBA, she worked in schools, clinical settings, the community, and homes of individuals on the Autism spectrum and individuals with special needs. Prior

What does a BCBA do?

As a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), Emily provides one-to-one therapy to children with special needs to reduce interfering behaviors and increase verbal, play, and social skills. As a BCBA she has worked in schools, clinical settings, the community, and homes of individuals on the Autism spectrum and individuals with special needs

What was the motivation for the App?

I was inspired to develop PeerKnect due to my experience with parents making requests for me to get their child, my client, connected with other children for playdates and social connections.  I tried connecting with colleagues, but it was impossible to get connected for the purpose of making peer-to-peer connections for our clients, which is why I decided to develop an app as a solution.”

As a mom, I know how valuable it is for my own children to have friends, socialize, and engage with the community.  I wanted the same for my clients.  I knew if they could get connected, we could work on improving social and play skills and reduce isolation.  I believe everyone that exists is uniquely special, this includes children with special needs.

My clients were all full of joy, curious, creative, and amazing. Nobody wants to feel like they do not belong or are not valued.  We all need to cultivate empathy within and develop an understanding that allows all children to feel valued, respected, and let children with special needs know their dreams matter too, and then find ways to support them and their families. 

Emily Bruce can be contacted at emily@peerknect.com.

Transcript

Marsh Naidoo (00:18):

<silence> Hi guys, my name is Marsh Naidoo and I blog at raisingkellan.org where we curate resources for parents raising children with developmental delays and disability. In today's episode number 53, we talk with Emily Bruce, whose creator of the Peer Connect App. As always remembered the information provided on this podcast is purely informational. And thank you to Jessica Harrison of Shelter Insurance Berg, Tennessee for sponsoring today's episode

Marsh Naidoo (01:00):

<affirmative>. Emily Bruce is a board-certified and licensed behavior analyst in the state of Tennessee. She also holds her Master of science in Psychology. Emily is the developer of Peer Connect, and I am super excited to have her with us. Emily, welcome to the Raising Kellan podcast.

Emily Bruce (01:25):

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I love it. I love being here.

Marsh Naidoo (01:29):

Emily, we're gonna circle back on a little bit more about who you are and what you do in your background, but before we get into that, can you please tell us about the App, its functions and what it does?

Emily Bruce (01:51):

Okay, so we always say that we build friendships and social connections for children with special needs by bridging the gap between parents, caretakers and therapists using smartphone technology. And so basically what that means is we have a peer connect is live on both the Apple Store and Google Store. Parents can download the application, they can post a virtual or in-person play date. They can search for play dates near them. They can search for inclusive events that are near them. So like a movie theater or a movie or a restaurant or some type of event caretaker training event or could be a therapy practice hosting an event. And just so that they can engage more in the community, parents can also post a birthday party or a Halloween party. They can say, I want four people to come. I want 10 people to whatever it is. They create a child profile so they can put their child's skills, deficits, likes and dislikes on the application.

(02:56):

We don't have identifying information, so we always say for a therapist, they would use an identifier for a parent, they would use initials or nickname but you do have the child's diagnosis and age, gender and it's just a way for people to get connected so that they can either build those friendships or just work on some social skills or play skills or where a child might have deficits. So as a therapist, I would work on social skills and play skills deficits so that my clients could acquire those skills so that they can build more independence and work towards that for their lives. That was a very long <laugh> recap, but there's more to it. But that was I could go on forever.

Marsh Naidoo (03:41):

What I would like for you to talk more towards is about the safety features that is attached to Connect as well as the hip compliance, because you do the app is also marketed towards therapists that might be in clinics. So how does that all tie in, Emily?

Emily Bruce (04:04):

Yeah, so because I am a mom, I wanted to think from, and a therapist, I was thinking, Okay, we need to make this HIPAA compliant. We need to make it safe for our parents because as a mom, if I'm going to connect with somebody, I wanna make sure that they are verified. We didn't want any nefarious characters on our application, and this is a vulnerable population, any child, any parent-child and so we embedded identity verification within the application and we're using a platform, they are called ENT Go, and they used to be Identity Mind. So if you've ever deposited a check using your smartphone or if you've ever had your ID verified, it's the same type of software. So we embedded that in the application. It's real-time ID verification. They use Edna technology. And so we have that for both the therapy practices and then the application.

(05:05):

So therapy practices would subscribe through our web application, which is on the website, families or solo practitioners, single-users, they would subscribe through the app stores and both have the ID verification. We also included Google Places or Google Assist. So if you are a parent and you wanna post a play date for me as a mom, I was like, if I'm meeting somebody I've never met before, I wouldn't really wanna go to their home. But people can do what they choose, whatever they feel comfortable with. And so I was like, I wanna be able to put something in there that would suggest a place that's close to the person that is posting a play date. So Google Assist basically uses the geolocation of the user and it will come up with play centers, libraries, parks, any place that a family could post a play date.

(05:57):

And then it automatically populates the place that the user selects. So it could be jump center or the local library. Those are wonderful places to host a play date because you feel like you're in a safe area. There's other people around. And so those are the two main safety features. And then it is HIPAA compliant because we're not collecting any type of insurance information. A therapist, therapist that use the application, they are kind of under an umbrella subscription. So it would be the clinical director or office manager. And then they have what are called designated users. So all of the therapists that are in their office, whether they're BCBA, an SLP, an OT, physical therapist, any type of therapist that they have verified themselves, every therapist has to go through a background check, and then they're licensed with the state.

(06:55):

So they would be the designated users. And then when they create their child profiles, they use those identifiers. So for me, I would use numbers. So I would have client 1 0 3, a male, this is their birthday. But then on the application, it just shows their age, it's, it doesn't show their birthdate. So it's say male, ASD, seven years old, These are their skills deficits, likes and dislikes. So you could say something like working on expressive and receptive language delays. My client likes trains, but doesn't like loud noises, whatever it is that you want to put as a therapist. So then when another therapist or another parent wants to see that child profile, like, Oh wait, I'm posting a play date, or I'm searching for a play date, so I can look at the other subscriber's profile and I can see what those skills deficits likes or dislikes are, and see if it would be a good suitable match for my client or my child.

(07:58):

So because I'm a therapist, I was like, We have to protect the identity. Plus as a mom, I wanna protect identity absolutely as well. And so those were the safety features that we just kind of put in place just to protect everybody. If you were looking at a play date that I posted and you were interested and maybe requesting to join my play date, you can see that it would say Emily B, it would not even have my last name. And then it would say Emily, BCBA and then you could look at the child profile and again, it would say Client 1 0 3 male this age, this diagnosis, male or female, whatever it is. And that's all the identifying information that's on there. And then once two people actually are joined within the application, so if you request to join my play date and I say Yeah, this would be a wonderful play date, and I accept you then we can begin to chat within the application as well. So I could say, Hey, I just want you to know we're working on sharing, or we're working on greeting, and I might not prompt my client for five seconds, but just know that's what we're working on when we go to this play date. So it's a tool for therapists, it's a tool for parents, but it's also a way to hopefully make those forever friends for parents to get out there and socialize, reduce that isolation piece, and just really get people connected. Again,

Marsh Naidoo (09:24):

I totally see the value of this application, especially for those parents that might be new to moving geographic locations and not necessarily have friendships or relatives already established nearby and to looking for those play date opportunities for their kids. But I wanna make sure as well, besides the therapist setting up the kids for these interactions, is the parent able to self-initiate? Is the Yeah. Okay. Just wanna make sure.

Emily Bruce (10:03):

Yeah. So whoever the subscriber is, so if it's a mom, a dad, if it's a grandparent, could be a nanny or a caretaker could be a guardian. I've worked with clients who've had guardians, and if they wanna get connected to work on those play skills to just provide opportunities for their child or their grandchild or the child that they're taking care of, if the parent gives permission for the nanny to take the child out to a play date to work on those play skills and those social skills then they can subscribe as well. And I also wanna point out that this is not just for parents or therapists of children with special needs, any parent of any child or caretaker or nanny, whatever we, So I wanted to model what being inclusive looks like. So this is our community, so I wanna welcome typically developing kiddos into our community and just model what that looks like. This is what inclusivity is. We are not going to say we're not excluding anybody. You can be welcomed into our community and are typically developing peers are always really great peer models too. So we would love to get them connected with our kiddos and just make friends and work on those social skills

Marsh Naidoo (11:28):

And also for siblings as well. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think so. Through the app, you are able to set up play dates events that are able to advertise their offerings, <affirmative> what else comes through with the app, Emily, are there any other features attached with it that you would like to make? The listeners a way off?

Emily Bruce (11:58):

So I have mentioned this already, but users can post or search for in-person or virtual play dates. So some people can't get out of their homes, but that doesn't mean they don't want to socialize or get connected or make friends. So they might be able to find a virtual play date or look, we found ourselves in a pandemic that we never expected to be in and we had so many of our kids, all kids in the United States just feeling really isolated and lonely. So this is a way to just get connected and socialize. And then like I said, there, there's a feature for a parent if they wanna post a birthday party or a Halloween party or a holiday party or a karaoke party or a pool party. And so the play dates are one-to-one, but the parties are, if I want to host a birthday party for my child and I want five people to come.

(12:56):

And it's not necessarily about just having a birthday party, it's really about contriving an environment for our kids to have the experience and the opportunity to engage in a birthday party or whatever kind of party you want it to be, just a social party so that they can have that experience and work, begin working on those skills. So eventually they can go to those opportunities for birthday parties or social parties on their own independently. But if they never actually have the opportunity to have that experience, they don't know how they're supposed to behave in that environment. And it's the same thing with going out in the community. Let's go to a restaurant, let's sit down, let's eat as a family. And if we never get that opportunity, and as a therapist, that's always something that I was focused on working on. We're going in the community, Let's go to the mall, let's go Christmas shopping, go to a restaurant, let's go to a place center, let's go to the library because I want you to have more of those opportunities in the future.

(13:58):

And if we never go, we're going to continue to engage in what's called experiential avoidance, and we're not going to engage in that environment because if we had a bad experience where our child engaged in some type of interfering behavior and then we're like, Okay, this is too much, I can't do that. But the more we're exposed to it, the more we have those opportunities, the more we start to engage in those behaviors that are expected in that environment, then the more independence we will have. And that's what we want for our kids. We want them to be able to go out and just thrive and enjoy life and have amazing experiences. We want that for families, all families, all parents, siblings as well. You mentioned siblings, and that's important too, because a parent can have as many child profiles as they want to. And so this might be a way for them to get connected. So they might have a kiddo with special needs, but then the siblings a lot of times are left out. And so they could be like, You know what? I'm gonna find a play date for my other child so that they can socialize as well. And so those are just different ways to get connected.

Marsh Naidoo (15:08):

Emily, I won't be doing my due diligence if I don't ask this question, but what does subscription look like? What does signing up look like? Is there any fee attached with that or how does that work?

Emily Bruce (15:24):

So for parents, there's three different subscriptions. There's the single user, which is the parent, grandparent, nanny, solo practitioner. And those single users have to subscribe through the app stores. We have a free version, and then we have a paid subscription. So the free version allows users, they just go in, they enter their email address and a password, they verify their email, and then they can gain access to all of those events that are hosted by the movie theaters, any business that hosts those inclusive events, universities that might have caretaker trainings, therapy practices that might have trainings or special events for families in their community. And then parents also, with the free version, they can see if there's any play dates listed near them. They can't actually see what the details are for that play date or look at who the person is that the subscriber that posted it or child profile, but at least they can see what I might wanna actually have a play date.

(16:32):

And then they can upgrade their subscription if they want to. So if they upgrade their subscription to post play dates, both in person and virtually parties, all of those things, that's 1499 each month. And then for therapy practices, as I mentioned, there's a clinical director or office manager, whomever that would be. They would be the admin that's $34.99 per month. And the admin can post those events, like the caretaker trainings or whatever the therapy practice is hosting at the time. And then the designated users are $11.99 each month, $11 and 99 cents. And for bulk rates we go down. So after 25, the price for designated users starts going down. So a therapy practice might have 20 designated users or a hundred. Some of these therapy practices have a lot of therapists, so we wanted to give them that discount for bulk users. And then the businesses that host those inclusive events, and that's all that they're doing, they're not actually using the application in any way for play dates or searching for play dates.

(17:37):

They're simply posting those events that's $34.99, just like the admin fee for the therapy practice because it's the same feature. They're doing the same thing. So we wanna make it easy and affordable for families and businesses and therapy practices because therapists can use this as a tool. It's an adjunct tool to help in the therapeutic process to target those specific therapeutic outcomes, to target those deficits to help their clients acquire the skills that they need to. And right now, as a therapist, I know, so recently I transitioned all of my clients out to focus 100% on peer connect. But prior to that, any social skills or play skills, I was targeting those without one-to-one therapy, not with peers, but if I had an opportunity to get my clients connected to a peer, that would've been so much better. They know what to expect from me, and I'm in my forties and they might be five or 10 or 15, and I'm their best friend because we always had fun, but I wanted them to have a best friend their age, and I wanted them to have the opportunity to work on those skills with a peer partner that is their age, and we just never get those opportunities as therapists.

Marsh Naidoo (18:55):

Emily, let's talk a little bit about you and your background. What got you started on the trajectory of being a behavioral analyst?

Emily Bruce (19:06):

Oh, well so that's kind of a long story, but I'll make it kind of short and sweet. So several years ago I went through a divorce and after that I was like, I need to take care of me and my children. And we wanted to heal from that as well. So I went to graduate school, got my degree, my master's degree in psychology, because I really wanted to help myself and my kids and also take care of us. And then I learned about behavior analysis and I was like, Oh, this is awesome. I love behavior. And I just kept going. So after my masters, I went and took all of the courses that I needed to be a behavior analyst, and then went through my training sat for the exam, and then worked for two different clinics. And then I started my own therapy practice, my own solo practice.

(20:00):

But I loved aba. I think it's amazing. I love to see the results with the families that I've worked with. I love to see a kiddo who maybe not is nonverbal when I first start working with them. And then all of a sudden they're like, Hey, there's Miss Emily, Miss Emily, let's play. Let's go do these things. And in the beginning, they don't want you to look at them or anything. And then all of a sudden they're like, They wanna sit in your lap, read me a book. And that's just the most amazing transformation to watch when you can just see a child evolve like that and grow. It's beautiful. I love it. I love it. Really.

Marsh Naidoo (20:40):

What's in the future for Peer Connect? Where you from now, Emily?

Emily Bruce (20:45):

Well, so we just launched Nationwide, and so we are trying to get our community built, so we're growing our community. So there's going to be a lot of places where there might be one user. We actually have single users scattered about the country, and we're trying to grow those communities. So what we really need to do is just gain users so people can start connecting but just grow. That's what we wanna do. What the main goal was for creating Peer Connect. When I was inspired to develop this platform, because as I mentioned, I was a mom, I went to graduate school and I came to this field later in life and having been a mom and watching my kids go through a lot of things, and when I started working with clients, I was like, Why aren't we doing play dates? Why aren't we getting connected?

(21:37):

And every family that I worked with would ask me that, Hey, can you get my child connected for play dates, <laugh>? And I tried with everybody, and the answer was always, No, I can't. Because I would text a colleague and they would be working with, I know a client that was the same age as my client on a different day, or they were across town. We just never could get it worked out. And so you stopped trying after a while because that takes a lot of energy to text every colleague that and say, Hey, can we get together? Or Do you have any clients that are 12? And so I just kind of had that idea floating around in my mind I was like, Why doesn't something like this exist? And as time went on and I had more and more experiences like that, I had one experience with a client who was the same age as my son.

(22:26):

I was hired by a local school district to work with a kiddo on his social skills. And he was a young teenage boy. My son at the time was as well, and I picked my son up from band camp and he had to go with me to my session and I was like, Listen, we're gonna go to this community center because I logistically I couldn't get him back home. I said, I need you to just play your switch and hang out. I'll be about an hour and then we'll go home. And he was like, Okay, mom. So when we get to the session, my client's mom asked if he could join because she knew he was with me. And I was like, Yeah, yay, I really wanted that. So we go into this little room, they're playing video games together. My son was trying to engage in conversation and I was trying to prompt them to try to socialize.

(23:13):

And my client's mom said, This is the first time we've done this. He's ever had a play date like this. And she tried through church, school, Facebook, meetup, she could never do. It's hard. It's very hard. And that moment I'm looking at these two boys same age, and I was just heartbroken because I thought if this were my son and all of my clients always brought that mom energy, this is my child. If this were my child, what would I want for them? If this were me, what would I want for me? So that was the moment I said, I have to do something about this, this, not this. I can't go through life knowing that these families are not connected and knowing that these kiddos may never have the opportunity to have a play date or find a friend. And so I connected with one of my very good friends who's a software engineer, and I said, I have an idea for an application.

(24:08):

Can you please help me code this? So he became my business partner and he's an amazing person. And he did, he coded everything with the exception of like the API integration for the ID verification, and then the app stores, we did hire another company. They did all the QA testing for us but it was a process in the beginning it was just play dates and then it evolved into everything else, virtual play dates, it evolved into the chat feature, it evolved into the other events businesses, but it was just really that love piece of it that motherly what I want from my kids, I want for your kids. And if I don't do it, is it ever going to get done? And so I was like, Nope, I'm just gonna go on and do it. And it took three years to get us to this point but we're super excited about it. If families, we can just help some families and get connected and reduce that isolation, anxiety, whatever it is, then it's worth all of it.

Marsh Naidoo (25:15):

Absolutely. Emily, thank you so much for your tenacity in bringing this project to fruition. And I wish you the best of luck because I so see the value of what you have to offer through the application. Would you perhaps like to tell listeners how they can find out more about the app if they would like to research it? Could you give us that information please?

Emily Bruce (25:45):

Sure. So the website Peer Connect is we spelled it a little bit different. We were trying to be techy, right? We were trying to be different than unique. So it's P E E R K N E C T. So Connect Peer Connect, P E E R K N E C t.com. If you want to subscribe to a professional account, which would be a therapy practice or a business that hosts those events or disability organization, because they host a lot of events as well. They would just sign up through the website. There's a link for the professional accounts. So if you are a parent single user, solo practitioner, grandparent, you go through the app stores. If you are a business, then you go through the web the website, and that's called, we call it a web application. If anybody has questions, they can contact us through the website and we'll get right back to them.

Marsh Naidoo (26:40):

Emily, thank you so much for your time and I look forward to seeing you in the future. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Marsh Naidoo (26:50):

As always, thank you for listening and sharing your time with us today. Please check raisingkellan.org for a write-up on Pier Connect, which is going to be an awesome read, and we would highly value you leaving us a rate and review on your podcast player. Guys, until we see you all the next time, remember, get to the top of your mountain. This is Marsh Nadu signing off.