This mother-daughter duo from Durham is making mental health services more accessible for families

When a mother-daughter duo from Durham saw a need for improved mental health services for children, they took action.

While growing up in Durham, Rebecca Egger noticed her mother, Dr. Helen Egger, was in high demand. At that time, Egger led the child psychiatry department at Duke University, and it seemed like people always wanted her advice.

"When someone found out that my mom was a child psychiatrist they would ask, 'Should I worry about my child? Is this normal?,'" Rebecca said. "And it was just clear that there was so much of a need that wasn't being talked about."

Rebecca herself struggled with severe anxiety as a child, and her brother suffered from a rare autoimmune disease which presented as a psychotic disorder. Without her mother's knowledge and resources, she wouldn't have found therapy so easily, and her brother might have not have received his lifesaving diagnosis, she said.

"Because of who my mom was he was able to get the care that he needed," Rebecca, now CEO of the company she founded with her mother, said. "And it's the reason that he's alive. It's something we felt as a family -- if it's this hard for us, something needs to change, because with all of our privilege and access and knowing the medical system, we still had to fight."

"I was doing business development and product management out in San Francisco, and it was one of those, like, switches that came on where I was like, this is a really good idea," said Rebecca, who moved to California after graduating from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Little Otter, which is all-virtual, launched at a time when children recovering from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic needed mental health services more than ever. Little Otter services are currently available in four states -- North Carolina, Florida, California and Colorado -- but the Eggers hope to reach families nationwide by the end of 2022.

Helen is still in North Carolina, overseeing Little Otter's providers. In San Francisco, Rebecca performs data analysis and researches how to make high-quality care more efficient for families.

Instead of waiting weeks for help, Little Otter aims to serve families within days. Licensed practitioners can offer a wide range of therapy, counseling and psychiatric services all online, helping families create treatment plans and prescribing medication when needed. Couples therapy and parenting support are offered in addition to services tailored to children and teenagers.

"Little Otter is about looking holistically at the family," Rebecca said. "This is a family mental health solution, because the only way that these things can be treated is by serving the entire family."

Rebecca said 85% of Little Otter families have shown a significant decrease in their symptoms within six sessions.

It's all about early intervention and prevention, Rebecca said, as 50% of mental health disorders occur before the age of 14. "You can identify these issues early," she said. "Most people don't know that, most people don't realize it."