An Evidence-Based Program Changing Lives

Founded in 2008, Raise Foundation is a national, Australian not-for-profit focused on early intervention and promoting positive youth mental health. Created by CEO Vicki Condon in response to the loss of a close family friend, Raise developed a school-based mentoring program to support teenagers during the risky, critical early teenage years.

In 2023 an independent evaluation of the program was funded by the Australian Government and conducted by the University of Melbourne and the Social Outcomes Lab. The evaluation found that Raise Youth Mentoring created positive outcomes across the domains known to improve wellbeing and improved futures; help seeking, resilience, hope for the future and school engagement.

The core program is delivered face-to-face over 20 weeks, where expertly trained volunteer adult mentors meet weekly with students identified by their school as needing support. These sessions take place on school grounds, with Raise Program Counsellors on-site to ensure quality and safety, including real-time support for mentees and mentors and tight oversight of youth safety protocols.

After 16 years of dedicated effort, it now supports over 2,500 young people annually in its face-to-face programs, making a material contribution to youth wellbeing in Australia.

“Across Australia we’re facing a youth mental health crisis. Suicide is still one of the leading causes of death for young people in our country. At Raise we help young people before they reach crisis point and we’re now Australia’s leading provider of youth mentoring programs”, says Vicki.

High Demand Meets Capacity Limitations

Despite the strength of its model, Raise faced a critical constraint on growth: mentor recruitment. The commitment required of being physically present at the same school, same time, each week for months limited who could volunteer.

Many prospective mentors couldn’t commit due to work, parenting duties, or location. Meanwhile, schools in rural and remote communities frequently requested programs that Raise couldn’t deliver due to lack of local mentors.

The organisation saw the potential of a digital model to reduce these barriers. But given Raise’s uncompromising focus on quality, child safety and risk management, moving online posed a major challenge: how to ensure the same high standards of delivery, safety and supervision in a virtual environment?

“Raise has always operated under a stringent Youth Safety Framework. Keeping young people safe is of paramount importance. It’s why we exist. Our goal is to provide a mentor to every young person who needs one however the lack of available mentors was limiting our growth. We needed to find a solution, and it had to be a safe one.” Expressed Vicki.

Raise Digital, Powered by Tacklit

In collaboration with Tacklit, Raise designed and launched Raise Digital, an online version of its mentoring program which maintains the safety, supervision and outcome quality of the face-to-face model, while dramatically increasing access and flexibility.

The Raise Digital Program

In more detail, Raise Digital is a free, online mentoring program, designed for young people aged 13 to 16. It offers two distinct programs tailored to different needs: a 17-week course that helps teens build broad life skills such as confidence, stress management, belonging and goal setting; and a 10-week course focused specifically on developing the vital skill of asking for help. Participants are matched with trained volunteer mentors who provide weekly 45 minute online sessions, ensuring flexible and accessible support from anywhere.

The program emphasizes safety, accessibility, and skill development, with mentors security checked and expertly trained to offer non-judgmental support in a safe space. Young people can apply directly or be referred by parents, carers, or schools, and receive ongoing support from Program Counsellors throughout their mentoring journey. By offering free, consistent, and flexible mentoring, Raise Digital aims to empower young people across Australia to grow in confidence, develop essential life skills, and learn how to seek help when they need it.

To enable Raise Digital, Tacklit deployed its care delivery platform, including a suite of AI-powered tools and platform features, such as:

• A specifically-trained AI risk monitor that reviews every online mentoring session in real time for youth safety risks, such as disclosures of suicidal ideation or other concerns, as well as mentor conduct risks, such as prohibited exchanges of personal contact details

• An automated escalation process of AI-identified risks to Program Counsellors

• A “virtual hand raise” function, allowing mentors to call a Program Counsellor into the session immediately, mirroring the in-person model

• A fully integrated system for session management, supervision alerts, and outcome tracking, designed specifically for mental health program delivery

These features gave Raise the confidence that digital delivery could match the safety and quality standards of the original program.

A Two-Fold Increase in Reach Without Compromising Quality and Safety

Raise Digital has now been successfully rolled out to its first cohorts. Early feedback from mentors, students and schools is positive, and Raise has a clear roadmap for growth.

By 2027 Raise plans to double the number of mentors they train and mentees they support every year by training close to 5,000 volunteers to support more than 5,000 young people annually. The flexibility provided by Raise Digital will be instrumental in enabling this growth.

Importantly, all sessions continue to be monitored for quality and safety risks using Raise expertise and Tacklit’s tools, and outcome data confirms that the program remains effective, regardless of delivery channel.

“So far we have seen the same impressive results in Raise Digital as we get in our foundation program. Young people are so important and the better we enable them to get through the extremely challenging early teen years, the better everyone’s futures will be” concludes Vicki.