About Us
Pioneering the wellbeing check-in
We are a diverse team, brought together from across the globe by a common goal to make sure students have a voice that is heard and acted upon


Why we built Skodel?
Skodel was founded on a strong belief that checking in should be a purposeful and deliberate part of every school community. We knew that rapid social, cultural and technological changes were presenting different psychological challenges. The very word âdisruptionâ had become the marker for innovation. And yet, for all the advancements we had made across every objective measure of well being available, mental illness continued to rise. Perhaps most concerning was that very few (18-34%) would speak out, even if they were under severe psychological distress. This makes proactive approaches to wellbeing immensely challenging as problems often remain under the surface.
Skodel Check-In was built to unlock those voices by providing engaging outlets to tell it how it is, and then translating this into simple and powerful stories that would be heard and actioned by those that could provide additional support. What began as a way to identify potential wellbeing issues before they became problems, quickly turned into something more as we noticed students werenât just expressing concerns, but also accomplishments, hopes and passions. Ultimately, we were helping foster stronger teacher-student relationships through the simple act of checking-in. Students knew they were being cared for and listened to. Students had a voice that was being heard and acted on.
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Meet The Team

Peter OâConnell
Chairman

Huon Peard
Co-Founder & CTO

Lily Laurankova
UX Designer

Alan Sammarone
Senior Engineer
Julian Fagan
Co-Founder & CEO

Martin Goodrich
CFO
Iswanto Arif
UX Designer

Maggie Boutros
Legal

Ian Fagan
Co-Founder & CEO

Shubham Shah
Application Security Engineer
Ghani Pradita
UX Designer
Educators, Psychologists & Researchers
We mix practitioner experience with educator experience to ensure that our tools are not only scientifically reliable but also acknowledge the practical realities of the busy school environment.

Chris Tan
Educator

Olivia Appleton
Educator

Andrew Fuller
Psychologist

Professor Jane Burns
Psychologist

Erin Castillo
Educator
School Relationships Team
Experienced, dedicated and compassionate. Our school relationships team will go on the journey with you to ensure you get the most out of Skodel Check-In
Values We Live by
Whilst we will always strive to evolve as an organisation and individuals, our core values will remain the same.
Simplicity
Hans Hofmann famously said âThe ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.â To impact, we must make simple work at all levels.

Transparency
No meetings take place âbehind closed doorsâ. We have an open, honest and readily available approach to sharing information. And we cannot expect to build and maintain trust without it.

Flexibility
Each person, organisation and community is unique. It is one of the core reasons we steered clear of traditionally prescriptive and rigid frameworks. There truly is no âone size fits allâ.
Empathy
We must acknowledge practical realities. Often, things will be good in theory and fail to work in practice because we lack the necessary understanding of usersâ realities.
Making the regular wellbeing check-in work
Over a number of years, we have rigorously tested, iterated and developed to make the simple wellbeing check-in, a powerful and valuable practice within school communities. Here is some of what we have learned about the wellbeing check-in.
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