Teen Health Research – an edtech startup with ties to North Carolina State University – recently launched a new website to recruit families for its innovative digital learning platform, Let’s Talk.

Developed by a team of psychologists, pediatricians, and sex educators, Let’s Talk is an expert-guided, interactive platform designed to help families start and continue conversations around puberty and relationships with customized content based on individual family needs.

“Communication around these topics can be difficult, particularly as children enter puberty,” said Laura Widman, founder and CEO of Teen Health Research. “But when families don’t have these conversations with their kids, someone else will—whether it’s through other teens or the internet.”

Starting the Conversation

Widman, a former professor in NC State’s Department of Psychology, first began working on Let’s Talk in 2020 while helping a family member talk with her teenage daughter about sexual health. A clinical psychologist and expert in adolescent sexual health, Widman provided medically accurate resources but found that alone wasn’t enough to help.

“I have all of this knowledge,” she said, “but it’s still so difficult to help even someone I know start these conversations.”

While other tools and curriculum exist to support sex education, Widman noted that they often focus on either teens or parents – not both – and rarely foster family communication or ongoing dialogue around these uncomfortable topics.

“I have all of this knowledge, but it’s still so difficult to help even someone I know start these conversations.”

As part of her research at NC State, Widman focused on technology-based interventions that improve health outcomes. This expertise guided her approach to begin building a communication platform that could effectively and interactively convey evidence-based content.

Leveraging the Ecosystem

Through NC State’s Office of Research Commercialization, Widman joined a software development challenge supporting university innovators seeking to develop digital solutions to real-world problems, leveraging the program to begin developing a prototype. She also participated in the National Science Foundation’s regional I-Corps and national I-Corps Teams programs, conducting over one hundred customer interviews to better understand the struggles of communicating within families and what tools they need.

In 2022, she formed Teen Health Research and received a National Institutes of Health Phase I STTR award to support development of Let’s Talk. The company has also received funding support from NC State’s Daugherty Endowment and the One North Carolina Small Business Program.

The startup was selected for the Launch Accelerator, a program offered by the Office of Population Affairs in partnership with RTI International, aimed at advancing new solutions for promoting adolescent sexual health. As part of the accelerator’s first cohort in 2024, Teen Health Research received $150,000 to support key hires – including a part-time CTO to help streamline backend programming and legal counsel to ensure compliance with federal child privacy regulations.

Building for the Future

Let’s Talk is in the final stages of development and is slated for official launch this fall. A new website for the platform went live this summer, and Widman’s team is actively recruiting families interested in building their communication skills around teen sexual health. More than 500 families have already signed up, with a goal of reaching 1,000 families.

Widman recently accepted a new role as a professor at the Institute on Digital Health and Innovation at Florida State University, where she will continue to advance digital health tools for teens and young adults. 

While the current version of Let’s Talk is designed for families with children ages 10 to 13, Widman sees potential to expand the platform’s scope. 

“We see this as a family communication platform for tough topics,” she said.  “In the future we hope to include conversations around other critical topics such as mental health, substance abuse, and more.”

Families and other community partners interested in learning more or signing up can visit www.lets-talk-families.com.