Olitool Ltd

Our mission at OliTool Ltd is develop ‘smart’ products for wellbeing. OliTool® for children, our first product, was designed to help primary aged children develop skills necessary to thrive. OliTool draws on practices and protocols from the field of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) enabling children to develop emotional literacy and learn how to more effectively communicate their feelings and manage their behaviour. Some children struggle to develop these foundational social and emotional learning skills, particularly those with special needs and those vulnerable to mental health issues. With OliTool, the adults in their world will gain insights into and more complete pictures of their children. In 2019 we developed the first OliTool for Children prototype (Innovate UK Smart Award). The project's co-design sessions with relevant stakeholders -teachers, special education needs coordinators (SENCo), educational psychologists, head teachers and children- informed the design process. With these insights, the team developed an initial OliTool app for setting goals and learning plans as well as the prototype hand-held toy-like interface, Oli. The OliTool system was trialled in three English primary schools during the Autumn term 2020. User trial results were very encouraging. They demonstrated that all children loved using Oli and for a group of children there was a marked increase in self-esteem, independence and self-understanding. The feedback from children, teachers and SENCo provide the team with a rich source of data for the next generation OliTool. With a NIHR grant (Invention for Innovation (i4i) Programme:Grant Reference Number NIHR203878), OliTool Ltd has now redesigned the OliTool app with testing in the autumn, 2023.(The views expressed in this project and its conclusions are those of OliTool Ltd. and its project collaborators, and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.)