In this conversation we talk to the Head to Health team about their new award-winning website – how the site works, the research and evidence behind it and practice tips on how health professionals can use it in their everyday practice.
“I think that the website works really hard to transmit that information in a way, that encourages people with milder symptoms to give some of these digital resources a go. We know they work but not everybody’s using them. They’re not being used to the fullest capacity that they could be. So, I think the other side of the coin is encouraging people who have got distress but aren’t in this severe group to give digital mental healthcare a go and see if it helps – because often it will.”
When Australia’s national mental health navigation service, Head to Health, set themselves the challenge of making it easier for people to find and connect with the best mental health services for their needs – whether that be face-to-face, telephone, online, or a combination of approaches – they listened to hundreds of Australians working and living in the mental health sector. They talked to people with lived experience and their families, GPs, psychologists and allied health professionals, university and behavioural researchers, health departments and regulators, tech innovators and service providers.
Importantly, Head to Health also spoke to people who hadn’t yet had experience with mental health services because, as research suggests, a staggering 54%* of people with mental illness don’t access support. For Head to Health, understanding and addressing those barriers could help to make significant gains in meeting the needs of people at the early stages of their mental health journey.
Working with Brisbane-based digital media agency, Liquid Interactive, who led the design process Head to Health gathered insights and expertise from more than 350 Australians to help co-design their new website in a bid to connect a fragmented mental health landscape in a way that would empower people to find and reach out for the mental health resources and services that could help them take care of their mental health and wellbeing.
In this episode of Digital Mental Health Musings Dr Tania McMahon talks to the Head to Health team about their award-winning new website – how the site works for clients and health professionals and the research and evidence behind it. We also share some great practical tips about how health professionals can use the site in their everyday practice to help support their clients.
For many people, a major barrier to accessing support was knowing where to start, explains Dr Sarah Cavanagh, clinical psychologist and Director of the Clinical Policy Section at the Department of Health and Aged Care.
“That very fragmented landscape means that even though people were aware of some of the options that they might have, they just weren’t aware of what was going to be the best option for them or the practicalities of what was involved. They were a little bit scared by the notion of talking about their mental health and they didn’t have the vocabulary to do that.”
– Dr Sarah Cavanagh
Concern around time and cost also weighed heavily on people’s minds as well as uncertainty around what their journey might look like if they were to access support.
Head of strategy at Liquid Interactive, Fiona Armstrong, said the challenge to provide the right level of information that enable people to feel informed to take action without feeling overwhelmed was an important design element to get right.
“This was where we got into the territory of exploring that very fine balancing point between making it easier for people and removing the friction so that they were more able to take action … It was really interesting in terms of how much of that friction you could remove from the journey because what we were seeing and hearing was that every time you hit a spot that had some friction or some challenge associated with it, people would just stop and drop out from actually looking after their own mental health because it was just too hard.”
– Fiona Armstrong
Based on hours of co-design workshops and one-on-one discussions, Head to Health also uncovered that what many people really wanted was assistance to help step them through a process of being able to identify the issues they were struggling with or that they might like help with and then guide them through the services that might be right for them.
In response, the team turned to General Practitioner and academic specialist, Associate Professor Caroline Johnson and her research group, at the University of Melbourne to bring their clinically validated decision support tool Link-me, to people looking for help online.
Originally designed to be used in the general practice setting, Link-me is a digital, patient-completed Decision Support Tool that predicts severity of depression or anxiety, identifies priorities and recommends the appropriate step or level of interventions for the patient to the primary healthcare professional.
By completing the quiz, people can get tailored advice and recommendations backed by models based on more than 10 years of Australian data. Recommendations to health professionals and services with options to book appointments within the site as well as a dashboard to save and print information from the quiz with health professionals as well are some pathways for action while for those people with less sever or mild symptoms, digital mental health tools and services might also be recommended, explains A/Professor Johnson.
“I think that the website works really hard to transmit that information in a way, that encourages people with milder symptoms to give some of these digital resources a go. We know they work but not everybody’s using them. They’re not being used to the fullest capacity that they could be. So, I think the other side of the coin is encouraging people who have got distress but aren’t in this severe group to give digital mental healthcare a go and see if it helps – because often it will.”
– A/Prof Caroline Johnson
While the new site launched in June this year, it’s design and the comprehensive research behind it has already been recognised by industry. Winning Best in Class by the Australian Good Design Awards in September, Head to Health is already helping more Australians who are experiencing mental health challenges – and the people who support them – find a path forward and access services that are right for them wherever they are in their mental health journey.
Who is Dr Sarah Cavanagh?
Sarah has over 20 years experience leading health and mental health policy and program development and its also a practicing Clinical Psychologist. As Director of the Clinical Policy Section at the Department of Health and Aged Care, Sarah provides clinical policy guidance and support to the Departmental team delivering the National Head to Health website and works with the Department’s contracted providers, Liquid Interactive and the University of Melbourne, to ensure the clinical safety and quality of the website.
Who is Fiona Armstrong?
Fiona has over 20 years executive-level experience leading and transforming health and government services, including in mental health, aged care and many social services. She specialises in transformation that delivers improved social outcomes. Fiona led the Head to Health research and co-design process, engaging with over 350 stakeholders including Australians with lived experience of mental illness, health professionals, service providers and academics, to create a new solution that helps all Australians access the mental health and wellbeing services that are right for them.
Who is A/Prof Caroline Johnson?
A/Prof. Caroline Johnson is an academic specialist in the Department of General Practice, University of Melbourne. Her expertise encompasses clinical, teaching, research and advocacy work that impact on the quality of primary care, as a cornerstone of health care systems nationally and internationally, with particular attention to primary mental health care. She has been in clinical practice for over 30 years and contributed as a medical educator since the mid-1990s, moving increasingly into mental health advocacy and research in the last 25 years, via numerous national and regional roles as an expert advisor and policy shaper.
Check out some of the resources we discussed in this episode:
Head to Health: https://www.headtohealth.gov.au/
Read more about the new website features: https://bit.ly/3Rhz67C
Read more about Link-me: https://bit.ly/3uCysZK
Contact Head to Health and share your thoughts on the site: https://bit.ly/47snXXe
Listen to the full conversation below. You can also access Digital Mental Health Musings on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, and Deezer.
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