Creating a youth mental health service for vulnerable communities.
The mental health and wellbeing of young people is a major public health concern. Almost 40% of 16–24 years old experience a mental health disorder over a 12-month period. Although they have higher prevalence rates than the general population, more than a million young people with a mental health difficulty are not seeking professional support.
There are numerous systemic barriers for young people seeking professional support. There’s an urgent need for early intervention, youth-centred services that respond to the increasing – and varying – pressures that young people today experience. We need new support models addressing young people’s needs and desirable futures.
Our research revealed young people needed accessible, non-clinical, and personal support. Working hand in hand with the ReachOut strategic design team we augmented an existing program of work to support the research, evaluation, design and build of the Peer-2-Peer communication channel as part of RO’s new business strategy - creating a more relevant and useful service to young people in need of support.
“It was cool because I felt I was in control. We talked about ways that I could manage some of my feelings, and my peer worker shared what had worked for them in the past. It was such a good place to start for me so I could look out for myself better.”
Anonymous - PeerChat participant, 19
As part of this program, we first ran seven weeks of ‘sprints’ to explore this such as prototypes around communication platform choices, through to games and art interventions that would help engage. With the use of an online self-reflection experiment, we found young people simply wanted someone to listen and validate their struggles. One-on-one online chat with a trained peer emerged as their preferred method.
The design decisions were co-produced with a community of young people, peer workers, and clinical psychologists. ‘Sprinting’ through complexity was exhausting, we moved to a more sustainable agile process, developing the service and workforce model for several months before launching.
Tackling Complexity with Immersive Data Sprints and Agile Development for Inclusive, Collaborative Solutions.
Deep Service Design Thinking
Every aspect of the peer workforce was co-created with peer-workers, industry experts, and clinical psychologists.
Onboarding Interventions
Onboarding calming interventions like music and a guided breathing exercise help to reduce anxiety caused by anticipation.
User-controlled Experience Design
Young people can control the pace of the conversation with an innovative ‘thinking time’ button, reducing any pressure to respond quickly.
Tackling Complexity with Immersive Data Sprints and Agile Development for Inclusive, Collaborative Solutions.
Moving to Pilot
After using various technical prototypes to stand up the service concept, the project was then moved to a full technical build phase and integrated into the ReachOut technical platform.
Enhancing Privacy and Support through Reflective Technology
The texting format is fundamentally anonymous and reflective, increasing accessibility and ease for sharing sensitive topics.
Supportive messaging, coupled with automatically generated or user-chosen anonymous usernames, ensures young people feel safe and maintain their privacy.
Tackling Complexity with Immersive Data Sprints and Agile Development for Inclusive, Collaborative Solutions.
Customer immersion
We ran seven weeks of ‘sprints’ to explore support prototypes ranging from games to art interventions.
Deep Customer insights
Through an online self-reflection experiment, we found young people simply wanted someone to listen and validate their struggles
Sprints Vs Agile
‘Sprinting’ through complexity was exhausting, we moved to a more sustainable agile process, developing the service and workforce model for several months before launching.
Result Listing
73% rated improvement in wellbeing
In the first six months: Over 1,000 chats with young people, showing a 73% improvement in wellbeing and an 8.2/10 service rating.
PeerChat helps hundreds of young Australians each year to overcome systemic mental health support barriers when they need it most.
PeerChat can reduce distress, increase mental health knowledge, and positively influence the way young people feel about themselves and others. It enhances the wellbeing of young people through connection, understanding, and hope. Its digital, anonymous, and one-on-one nature improves accessibility for our most vulnerable communities. Importantly, it’s an exemplar for the value of people with lived experience to co-produce and deliver safe services that are highly personal while being relevant and inclusive for the diverse nature of humanity.
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