A Leading Provider of Primary and Community Mental Health

Fresh Minds is a leading provider of mental health, behavioural health, youth health, addiction, and wellbeing services. As a wholly owned subsidiary of the ProCare Group, it is the largest primary mental and behavioural health organisation in Aotearoa.

The organisation employs 130 clinicians and practitioners—including psychologists, counsellors, nurses, health improvement practitioners, health coaches, addiction wellbeing kaiawhina, and return-to-work navigators—supported by 30 leadership and operational staff. Services are delivered across community settings, schools, general practice, and clinical centres, both in-person and virtually. Based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Fresh Minds has expanded nationally and into Australia.

Its vision is “Kia puāwai te hauora — Thriving mind, body, spirit, and community for all people in Aotearoa”. Its purpose is “Whakamana ngā tāngata — Together, we serve and empower individuals, whānau and communities to lead equitable, healthy, and well lives they aspire for.” This guides an approach that is evidence-based, culturally responsive, and tailored to each person’s stage of life, background, and circumstances.

Fresh Minds provides a wide spectrum of services, from therapy and webinars to school-based health programmes, employer wellbeing, and community initiatives such as parenting support and smoking cessation. Access, equity, and cultural responsiveness are core priorities, with particular focus on Māori, Pacific, youth, and other priority populations. Alongside service delivery, Fresh Minds invests in workforce development, including professional internships, to help address New Zealand’s growing mental health needs.

Fresh Minds is the largest primary mental health organisation in Aotearoa New Zealand

A Need for Scalable, Integrated Digital Capability

By 2023, Fresh Minds had grown into New Zealand’s largest provider of primary mental health and wellbeing services. However, fragmented processes, data and legacy systems were creating barriers to growth, efficiency, and consistency of care.

Following several months of consultations with staff, help seekers and partners, Fresh Minds identified its critical needs:

• Better client engagement through web-based access, portals, and telehealth.

• Standardised, efficient referral processes for GPs and other providers.

• Improved data quality to support reliable clinical decision-making and risk management.

• Configurable workflows and dashboards to drive operational efficiency.

• Improved clinician engagement with easy-to-use digital tools.

• Secure interoperability across systems.

• Integrated capability to deliver virtual consultations and webinars.

In short, Fresh Minds required a modern digital platform capable of supporting both immediate needs and long-term innovation.

Dr. Tania Wilson, General Manager and Director, Psychological and Behavioural Health, ProCare Fresh Minds, recalls: 

‘Digital transformation was critical for Fresh Minds. As a growing service we needed to revise Fresh Minds operating processes to streamline and scale with potential for enabling client self-service capability.   We were seeking a system that was able to integrate with existing systems, and provide a virtual platform while enhancing our service management capability. Improving  visibility of clinical risk, service levels, client feedback, data capture and contract spend were core requirements.’

Partnering with Tacklit for a Tailored Solution

By the end of 2023, Fresh Minds selected Tacklit as its digital transformation partner, after completing a rigorous process to assess the market and alternative solutions. The decision was followed by a series of consultations that allowed Tacklit to understand, then configure its platform to align to Fresh Minds’ specific clinical and operational requirements.

Together, Fresh Minds and Tacklit co-designed and delivered a comprehensive digital transformation program. This included:

• Data migration and setup to ensure a smooth transition from legacy systems.

• Cultural appropriateness exploration, with heavy involvement of Fresh Minds team, to ensure the community voice was heard and cultural needs were met 

• A new client management platform with modern referral processes, clinical workflows and templates, scheduling, invoicing and billing for both government-funded and private clients, and integrated telehealth (video and phone).

• Clinician-facing tools such as calendars, caseload management, communication templates, and dashboards with alerts for better operational oversight.

• A branded client portal and booking platform, enabling clients to manage appointments, access telehealth, and make online payments where needed.

• Integration with other systems used by ProCare, GPs, schools and government agencies, including referral forms, secure messaging, and connections to national health identifiers and data warehouses.

• Support for testing and phased deployment, ensuring quality across multiple releases.

• Training for staff, including super-users, configuration guidance, and accessible online learning modules to embed the system across the organisation.

Through this program, Tacklit provided Fresh Minds with a single, integrated platform that connects referrals, clinicians, clients and funders — supporting both clinical decision-making and operational efficiency at scale.

Dr Tania Wilson commented:

‘The appeal of Tacklit is that it aligns with our mental health and wellbeing focus and it has a platform that is more ‘fit for purpose’ than other systems we had reviewed. We also found the approach by the Tacklit team to understand our needs, and work collaboratively with us to tailor the system was invaluable.’

Significant Benefits Reported from the Partnership

Eighteen months after implementation, Fresh Minds reports that the Tacklit platform has delivered measurable benefits across its services and workforce:

• Staff describe the system as easy to navigate.

• Referral management and scheduling processes have improved.

• Data quality has increased, supporting better clinical decision-making.

• Assessment tools are easier to store and apply.

• Outcome monitoring is stronger, including for priority ethnic and age groups.

• Experiences have improved for both staff and clients.

• Services have expanded, including private-pay access via the client portal and a scalable virtual workforce.

• Standardised e-referrals and data capture have enhanced both analytics and invoicing.

• A robust digital foundation is now in place, enabling future AI-enabled innovation.

Reflecting on results to date and future needs, Tania concludes: 

‘We are experiencing strong benefits from Tacklit, which have enabled us to strengthen our digital capability, operation and clinical systems.  As our needs evolve we are continuing to work with Tacklit to ensure enhancements can be added to accommodate our service growth trajectory. We continue to value our close collaboration, bringing together our respective areas of expertise. Our focus remains firmly on improving our clients’ experience when accessing our services.’