World Mental Health Day: Kooth’s Pledge to Underserved Communities

As CEO of Kooth, I believe that mental health is not a privilege, but a fundamental human right. On this day – World Mental Health Day – I’d like to recognise how the WHO’s theme this year aligns so closely to Kooth’s overarching purpose. We strongly believe that every individual deserves the assurance of having access to quality mental health support services.

Underserved (and unserved) communities represent those with limited or no access to resources or that are otherwise disenfranchised. This may be based on their economic status, rural location, ethnicity, culture, gender, or disability. Equity of access is not merely a concept to be discussed, but a reality we should proactively strive towards in every society.

Early intervention in mental health support is crucial. The benefits it brings are manifold – it not only enables problems to be addressed earlier (before things escalate), but also plays a pivotal role in preserving what is being referred to as brain capital. The earlier we can reach young individuals who are struggling, the better chance they have of leading poised, productive and fulfilling lives.

However, having available resources is not enough. Equity of access needs to be supplemented with equity of awareness. Too often, young people and their caregivers are left in the dark about the mental health resources available to them. Or, the stigma associated with seeking help is too great. Providing and promoting culturally relevant, welcoming and de-stigmatising support about mental health services is a fundamental must.

In our endeavour to battle the growing mental health crisis, let us commit to creating accessible, inclusive, stigma-free and equitable mental health programmes for our youth. They are, after all, the stewards of our future, and we owe it to them – and ourselves – to afford them every opportunity to thrive mentally and emotionally. Together, let us work towards a world where mental health is not just a basic human right but a priority for all. Let us invest in our brain capital, and in turn, build stronger, healthier communities.

Kooth already removes so many significant barriers in seeking mental health support. Our public/private partnership model ensures that individuals never have to worry about the financial aspect of receiving support in the areas we serve. We aim to de-stigmatise and de-clinicalise the language of mental health to reduce barriers to seeking help, and provide a safe, welcoming and supportive space for individuals to get the support they want and need.

But we can do more. I’d like Kooth to commit to one, simple pledge that helps to improve equity of access and awareness for our Youth. Each World Mental Health Day, we’ll review our progress and lay out our action plan for improving this over the year.

Kooth operates in a population health model – we serve entire communities, and the diverse populations within them: social economic, ethnicity, gender, cultures, ages, and opinions on mental health services.

To strive for equity, we must ensure that our resources are designed with, and for underserved and unserved communities. Over the next year, we will put a specific emphasis on:

1. 1.

   Co-designing our services with, and for, youth. We have, and will continue to implement regular feedback sessions, user experience surveys, and foster a 'co-design culture' within our research, product and technology teams to provide services that are accessible and welcoming. It is our belief that the most effective solutions come from placing the wants and needs of individuals at the heart of our platform and technology innovations.

2. 2.

   Culturally relevant content. For digital services to resonate they must first be relevant. Users want to see, and hear from people that they can relate to. In support of this, it’s essential to ensure we provide culturally relevant content and communities within our service, including sharing the voice of individuals with lived-experience.

3. 3.

   Engaging with community-based organisations to establish trust, tackle stigma, and provide support. Community-based organisations have a huge role to play in helping reach and support underserved communities. By working with these organisations we can better understand how best to tackle the topic of stigma, and ensure our ‘language of promotion’ is applied sensitively. However, as one community leader recently said to me, “we can only move at the speed of trust”. As such, we need to focus on long-term relationship-building, not short-term ‘transactional’ partnerships.

4. 4.

   Developing research and evidence in support of a person-centric approach to mental health support where “no one size fits all” – Despite the appeal of delivering standardised mental health programmes at population-scale, the evidence points in the opposite direction; there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. We will continue to champion, innovate, and evidence how both digital and practitioner-led support can provide welcoming, engaging and person-centric support for all.

Given the ever-changing, often turbulent world that we live in, it’s more important than ever to establish mental health support as a fundamental human right, and that no-one feels marginalised or left-behind.

We need to ensure that personalised mental health support is accessible to all, not just to some.

This article was first published in October 2023. See Tim Barker's update for World Mental Health Day 2024 - Progress on our Pledge - on LinkedIn