Changes in the Digital Mental Health Landscape (Dec ’23 to May ’24)

Changes in the Digital Mental Health Landscape (Dec ’23 to May ’24)

The digital mental health landscape is constantly growing the changing, and it can be difficult to keep up, especially for time-poor health professionals. Fortunately, at eMHPrac we are focused on staying up to date with all the latest research and service changes. Here is a snapshot of some of the major changes to the digital mental health landscape in the last six months.

New Services

In the last six months, a few new services have popped up. Here are some of the new services we’ve been looking at.

Mello

https://www.mello.org.au/

An app from Orygen Digital to help young people in Australia improve their mental health and break cycles of negative thinking.

Momentum

https://www.momentumhub.org.au/

Tailored online treatment programs to help children and adolescents with anxiety, depression, and improve overall wellbeing.

Peer CARE Companion Warmline

https://rosesintheocean.com.au/sector-priorities-collaborations/peer-care-companion-warmline/

1800 77 7337

A suicide prevention call-back service from Roses in the Ocean, providing a safe space for people with lived experience of suicide to connect with others with similar experiences for a chat.

Witness to War

https://www.fasstt.org.au/witness-to-war/

A free national hotline for people in Australia affected by overseas conflicts.

Updates to Existing Services

Digital mental health services are constantly developing and updating their offerings. The following services all released updates in the last six months.

BeyondNow

https://www.lifeline.org.au/get-help/beyond-now/

BeyondNow, a suicide safety planning app previously powered by Beyond Blue, is provided by Lifeline Australia, following a partnership between Lifeline and Beyond Blue announced earlier this year. The app is still available to download from the App Store and Google Play, and the web version is now available through the Lifeline website.

Head to Health

https://www.headtohealth.gov.au/

Head to Health is a national mental health website, linking Australians to digital mental health services, information and resources. Earlier this year they introduced new search features to help seekers explore content and services, including commonly searched words, smarter search, and filter results by selected emotion.

Mental Health Online logo

Mental Health Online

https://www.mentalhealthonline.org.au/

Mental Health Online is an internet-based treatment clinic, offering a range of treatment programs, information and resources to help people manage their own mental wellbeing. At the start of the year, they added a number of new features to their service including a refreshed interface, improved progress tracking features, a new healthcare professionals hub with a series of resources for healthcare professionals, and a brand new Depression-Anxiety program.

ParentWorks logo

ParentWorks

https://parentworks.org.au/#/

ParentWorks is an online program for Australian parents and caregivers providing evidence-based parenting strategies. The ParentWorks website is now back up and running after being unavailable for several months due to redevelopments.

Finding my way logo

Finding My Way

https://messages.flinders.edu.au/Notifications/FindingMyWay.html

Finding My Way is an online program providing information, suggestions, and support to improve the physical and mental wellbeing of people receiving treatment for cancer. The program is temporarily unavailable as it changes operating platforms.

Discontinues Services

There are many reasons a service may be discontinued, such as loss of funding and technological changes. Unfortunately, we have had to say goodbye to the following services in the last six months.

  • Child360
  • HeadGear
  • Healthy Families
  • Help with Dementia
  • HighRes
  • Kurdiji
  • Mind the Bump
  • Mindgauge
  • MySigns
  • Niggle
  • On Track with the Right Mix
  • Operation Life
  • Proppa Deadly
  • PTSD Coach
  • ReachOut Breathe
  • Recharge
  • ReMinder Suicide Safety Plan (functionality absorbed into Suicide Call Back Service website)
  • Sands

Features of On Track with the Right Mix, High Res, PTSD Coach and Operation Life are now available through the Open Arms website Self-Help section.

Digital Mental Health Safety and Quality Standards

The Digital Mental Health Safety and Quality Standards are a national standard to assess the quality, care and safety of Australian digital mental health services. They include 59 actions related to clinical and technical aspects of digital mental health services, with the aim of improving the quality of service provision and protecting users from harm.

Professional Development for Digital Mental Health Use

The Black Dog Institute Health Professional Resource and Education Hub is a great space to connect with other health professionals to exchange knowledge and access professional development resources. Registrants to the hub can access live and recorded evidence-based webinars sharing information, tools and insights into using digital mental health in practice. In the last six months, they have released 7 new webinars which can now be accessed at any time including:

  • Screening and Early Intervention for people living with Eating Disorders
  • Simple strategies for living well with Adult ADHD
  • Recognising and Enhancing Positive Emotion
  • Smartphone apps for depression and anxiety in young people
  • Supporting Families when Dementia Comes Knocking
  • Making the most of mental health questionnaires
  • Living Well with ADHD
Join the Black Dog Institute Health Professional Resource and Education Hub

The WellMob team are constantly reviewing and adding new services to their website, as well as creating new resources to support workers in using these services. They have added a new resource to their Resource Sheets for Workers series – How to be a good Ally. This resource sheet is designed for non-Indigenous people, linking to resources sharing information and practical tips on what allyship means and how to be a true ally to First Nations clients, colleagues and communities.

If you would like to learn different ways to use the digital resources found on WellMob, you can hear real stories from health and wellbeing workers yarning about how they have used WellMob. Hear two new perspectives added in the last six months:

The start of this year saw the return of the Digital Mental Health Musing – an eMHPrac podcast bringing listeners the latest news and expert opinion in digital mental health. In each episode, clinical psychologist and host Dr Tania McMahon is joined by experts from across the mental health profession to shed light on the practical ways digital health can help your patients or clients.

This season introduces a new called ‘On the Ground’ where we speak to health professionals about their experiences using digital mental health with clients and their families and share tips. So far, there two new episodes have been released, or you can listen back on past episodes here.

On Our Reading Radar

At eMHPrac we like to keep our finger on the pulse of the latest research on digital mental health. We saw continued exploration on the potential AI in digital mental health, and the safety and quality of digital mental health tools in Australia. The following papers were on our reading radar in the last six months.

Publications on Australian Digital Mental Health:

The following publications highlight recent advancements in Australian digital mental health.

Want to get hear more about the basics of research evidence for digital mental health?  Check out our new resource bringing you a brief summary of the evidence behind digital mental health in practice.

Research Evidence for Digital Mental Health

This list of services is for information purposes only – a clinician should thoroughly evaluate a service before recommending it to a client. This list is not exhaustive and represents a selection of resources that can be found on eMHPrac’s website.

To find out more, please visit https://www.emhprac.org.au/ or for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing tools visit https://wellmob.org.au/.

eMHPrac provides education, training, and guidance to health practitioners and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health workers around digital mental health.

For consumers wanting digital mental health support, please visit the Head to Health portal https://www.headtohealth.gov.au/.