Tacklit UK customer Mind has published its inaugural Big Mental Health Report.

The report provides sobering statistics:
-> 1 in 4 people in suffer a mental health incident each year in England and Wales
-> the annual cost for mental ill health is estimated at £300B, double the annual NHS budget
-> 2 million people are on the waitlist to receive services, while 19% of all of England's mental health job openings remain unfilled

We have a lot of work to do.

Australian and New Zealand workers have the highest level of mental health risk across major English-speaking countries.

We have crunched the numbers in the recent TELUS Health mental health index survey to compare results across markets. Circa 40% of Australia and New Zealand workers have a high mental health risk, followed by the UK and Canada at about 32% and the US at 23%.

Nature Magazine has just published two fascinating articles which illustrate both the potential and the risks of AI-powered mental health interventions.

Steven Siddals et al at King's College London interviewed nineteen individuals about their experiences using generative AI chatbots for mental health. Participants reported high engagement and positive impacts, including better relationships and healing from trauma and loss.

Julian De Freitas et al at Harvard Business School shared recent findings suggesting that users of Gen-AI apps at times share mental health problems and seek support during crises, and that the apps sometimes respond in a manner that increases the risk of harm to the user.

At Tacklit, we believe AI will have an important role to play in increasing access to quality mental health interventions, but only if backed by appropriate evidence, and supported by risk-management frameworks.

Lived Experience Australia and the National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum (NMHCCF) have recently published a Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Checklist. It is a great, practical planning and reflection tool to help organisations develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to incorporate and strengthen a peer workforce.

Tacklit’s end-to-end platform for mental health service delivery includes modules specifically designed to support the large scale deployment of peer workforces.

Tacklit’s platform now supports the mental health of over 200,000 people worldwide!

A few years ago, we faced the enormous challenge of the global mental health crisis with a vision that the right technology could amplify the impact of those delivering care. We listened closely to frontline workers, clinical leaders, and those with lived experience. More..

Featured Article: A proven approach for the digital transformation of mental health services: Caraniche Case Study

Senior mental health leaders in the UK, Australia and New Zealand are fully aware of the inadequacy of their current systems, and of the promise that new technology holds for their staff and the people they support. However, many are loath to embark on the IT effort required to capture it.

And for good reason. Their existing technology environment is highly complex and fragmented, there is no support for change, and their organisations simply cannot afford the cost and risk of a large technology initiative.

Does this mean it is simply not possible to digitally transform most large mental health service organisations? Fortunately not. More..

For mental health organisations, operational inefficiencies can be a major barrier to providing effective care. This was the challenge faced by S.M.I.L.E. Counselling, a service providing low-cost counselling to 11-24 year-olds in West Lothian, Scotland.

Since implementing Tacklit, they’ve experienced a transformational shift, including a 50% reduction in DNA. More..

Technology can be used to greatly increase access to care, in a quality and risk-controlled way.

The Raise Foundation is a leading youth mentoring organisation in Australia. It has partnered with Tacklit to use online, AI, and new risk-management workflows to increase 5-fold the number of annual participants in its highly regarded programs. The result is Raise Digital.

We love partnering deeply with our customers so our technology can best enable clinical pathways and goals. In the last quarter, as in those before, we really enjoyed our time together around whiteboards in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Thanks to all our customers who inspire us and teach us every day.

If you would like to see more frequent news and updates, please follow our page on LinkedIn. Feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone else who might be interested. They can also subscribe here. We wish you all the best for the beginning of the year, and see you next quarter!