Soluna is our next generation mental health platform for children and young people. It retains the same clinical model, safeguarding standards, governance and professional support, while introducing a more engaging, accessible experience across both app and web.

Soluna will help local systems move upstream. By providing earlier, more accessible mental health support that young people actively choose to use, it will reduce waiting lists and rising pressure on traditional services.

Aligned with the iTHRIVE model and co-designed with young people, the service combines interactive self-guided tools, 100% pre-moderated peer support and professional help in a single app and web platform.

By making safe support more accessible and relevant to young people's lives, Soluna helps local systems

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  Expand no-threshold access to mental health support

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  Strengthen prevention and early intervention

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  Reach seldom heard groups

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  Deliver on the shift towards more digitally enabled models of care

In a landscape where young people are increasingly turning to unregulated AI tools and social media for mental health support, Soluna offers something categorically different. It is clinically governed, human-led, and built around the safeguarding standards that commissioners and system partners rightly expect. 

Every interaction is moderated by trained practitioners with structured clinical oversight, and direct connections to real-world community resources, giving young people a genuinely safe alternative to the unmoderated, unaccountable platforms that currently fill the gap.

In shaping Soluna in the UK, we have worked extensively with multiple cohorts of children and young people to understand their wants and needs, ensuring Soluna is culturally resonant and engaging to UK youth.

Soluna is based on our 25 year clinical foundation, and retains the same trusted safeguarding, governance and clinical model. 

What has changed is the experience and breadth of evidence-based support available immediately to children and young people. 

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  Experience: young people will have more support, more interactivity, and greater agency. They will have the ability to schedule their own one-to-one text chat appointments and choose their practitioner; our new drop-in waiting room has notifications, so young people do not have to stay fixed to the screen while waiting for a chat. Soluna is also accessible through a dedicated app or web platform, increasing engagement and extending the ways to find help in-the-moment

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  Support: our service users will see a huge choice of new features, in addition to those they may already be familiar with, including ‘Noise Cleanse’, which uses sound to promote relaxation and ‘Let it Out’, which is a safe space for venting. As well as seeing personalised content, they can also choose to share content with friends, linking to relevant pieces of content to spread awareness of Soluna, linking more young people with support

With Soluna, we are enhancing our approach to safeguarding, providing the ‘best of both worlds’ to our service user community and NHS and Local Authority partners: 

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  We will retain the easy-access support aligned with the i-THRIVE framework and wider strategic priorities around earlier intervention

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  Soluna will also enable Personally Identifiable Information (PII) collection, creating the foundation for enhanced safeguarding, integration and outcomes measurement

Yes - Soluna is the evolution of our Kooth service. 

From early September, all existing service users and all children and young people logging in to Kooth will be directed to Soluna. 

We are managing the transition closely. Young people’s access to our mental health support will continue uninterrupted, with strong clinical and governance oversight throughout. 

Over the transition period, the launch and beyond, our engagement team will be visiting schools, colleges, healthcare teams and local organisations to ensure children and young people - and all those who may refer to our service - are fully aware of the change, what it means for them and how they can signpost to Soluna.

As always, your relationship manager will keep you updated throughout this time.

We’re taking a careful and phased approach to launching Soluna, with strong clinical and governance oversight throughout and no interruption in access to support. 

We will start by migrating an early tranche of service users over to Soluna in the summer. From September, all service users will be migrated on to Soluna; there will be no access to Kooth from this point onwards

Yes. We recognise that for many commissioners, the data we provide is a vital part of meeting access targets. We can confirm that Soluna is fully equipped to continue NHS England Mental Health Services Dataset (MHSDS) reporting.

Yes - in the same way that Kooth does now, Soluna will offer children and young people timely access to confidential mental health support. This includes British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy accredited one-to-one text chat with our dedicated team of (human) mental health practitioners. 

While young people using Soluna will experience a service with greater interactivity, new features and a brand new look and feel, everything underpinning the service will stay the same, from our clinical model and high standards of safeguarding and governance, to our practitioner team and evidence-based approach.

From our adherence to strict safeguarding frameworks and comprehensive training programmes, to our policy of pre-moderating all content on our platforms, safety is front and centre of everything we do.

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  Our one-to-one text chat service is accredited by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), and our therapeutic content carries the PIF TICK quality mark, showing it is evidence-based, up to date, and easy to understand

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  All content and community spaces are actively moderated; users cannot message each other 

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  Content is also age-gated, so young people only see material appropriate to their age. Under Kooth, our existing safeguarding framework is fully compliant across legislation, statutory guidance and industry best practice within the UK, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands

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  Kooth and its UK services are fully compliant with the UK’s Online Safety Act

With Soluna, we are enhancing our approach to safeguarding, providing the ‘best of both worlds’ to our service user community and NHS and Local Authority partners:

• •

  We will retain the easy-access support aligned with the i-THRIVE framework and wider strategic priorities around earlier intervention

• •

  Soluna will also enable Personally Identifiable Information (PII) collection, creating the foundation for enhanced safeguarding, integration and outcomes measurement

For Kooth, creating a truly safe space online has always been central to our mission to bring mental health support to all. In evolving our service into Soluna, we continue to drive this mission in the safest way possible.

Yes. We have rigorous policies and procedures to ensure our users’ safety and privacy, which includes age-gating content.

Our processes are in alignment with the Ofcom regulations set out as part of the Online Safety Act to ensure content on our platform is appropriate, and our users are safe.

Our age rating framework is informed by a variety of evidence sources, including Department for Education guidance, the NHS Digital Manual, the NSPCC’s sexual development and behaviour in children resource, Government Online Safety Guidance, and a number of specialist mental health sources for particular topics, eg. BEAT, Mind and the Samaritans.

Our age ratings for children and young people are: 10-12, 13-15, 16-17 and 18+.

As on Kooth, content on Soluna will be pre-moderated, which means all user-generated content is subject to a thorough review process by our dedicated moderation team. The team screens all submitted content for both safeguarding issues and appropriateness, ensuring the material is in line with our clinical guidelines.

Only after careful examination and approval is the content published to the site and visible to other users. If content submitted by a service user gives us cause for concern, our safeguarding team is alerted and the user is offered appropriate support.

All user-generated content is anonymous. Everything a user posts is visible to our moderators, preventing private interactions between users.

Our therapeutic content also carries the PIF TICK quality mark, showing it is evidence-based, up to date, and easy to understand.

Kooth is proud to engage in ongoing user research, which is embedded into our product development process and informs continuous feature development. 

Following Soluna’s launch in the US, we have worked extensively with multiple cohorts of children and young people, from ages 10 to 26, to understand their wants and needs, ensuring Soluna in the UK is culturally resonant and engaging to young people

Specific research projects with UK children and young people include:

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  22 workshops nationwide with children and young people (CYP) aged 10-26 to evaluate feature resonance and accessibility. The participant groups were strategically selected to ensure diverse representation across age, ethnicity, gender, geography, and socio-economic backgrounds

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  Integrating feedback from over 2,600 existing Kooth service users to refine core functionality

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  Research with 18-25 year olds, including young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), to understand their mental health challenges and content preferences 

This rigorous, user-led approach ensures Soluna is not only clinically safe, but a platform that young people find engaging and supportive.

While our Kooth service is evolving into Soluna, everything underpinning the service - including how we embed our support deep within communities and existing networks of services - will continue. 

Crucially, we will continue to work closely with local systems to embed Soluna into local service pathways, recognising the shifts towards neighbourhood health and school and community-based provision.

Soluna is designed to be inclusive; by giving young people control of their environment and communication style, we ensure that support feels accessible rather than overwhelming. Access to Soluna can be especially valuable for young people who are waiting for a neurodevelopmental assessment, which can involve long delays and uncertainty. 

During this time, they may already be experiencing challenges linked to a possible diagnosis, such as anxiety, overwhelm, low confidence, emotional regulation difficulties, social pressures, or struggles with routines and communication. 

Soluna provides in-the-moment flexible support to help young people manage day-to-day wellbeing, build coping strategies, and feel understood while they wait for formal assessment or additional services. It can also support attendance and engagement in school, college, university, or work by helping young people navigate stress, motivation, relationships, and transitions in a way that feels accessible, non-judgemental, and easy to fit around their lives.

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  Our practitioners are trained to adapt their style. They use clear, concrete language, avoid abstract terms, and use visual tools like emojis to aid understanding

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  Young people can access support from their own familiar environment, free from the noise, lights, or travel stress of a physical clinic

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  The text-based, "faceless" nature of our chats removes the pressure of eye contact or interpreting social cues. This often allows neurodivergent young people to express themselves more deeply and calmly

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  Sessions are flexible, allowing for breaks and slower pacing

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  Young people can use self-directed tools like journals and videos that match their learning style. Our platform also meets high accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA) for use with screen readers and speech software

Soluna is based on Kooth’s clinical model, with the same governance, safeguarding and expertise that has always underpinned our services. All of our work is based on the foundations and evidence we have built over our 25 year history. 

Soluna in the US launched in early 2024 and is generating hugely positive results. Findings from a recent paper from the respected Lab of Scalable Mental Health at NorthWestern University show young people experience meaningful and lasting improvements after engaging with Soluna. 

This research shows significant reductions in psychological distress, anxiety, depression, hopelessness, loneliness, suicidal ideation, as well as increases in qualify of life related to both mental health and physical health at just one month - and through to three months.

This mirrors the findings of a UK study by the London School of Economics, which found children and young people benefitted from improvements across nearly all mental health and wellbeing measures after just one month of using Kooth. These included significant reductions in psychological distress, suicidal ideation, self-harm and loneliness

In terms of clinical outcomes, as with Kooth, we will use a range of outcome measures to determine Soluna’s effectiveness. 

We have also worked extensively with UK children and young people to ensure Soluna is culturally resonant. In UK-specific user research, participants who were shown Soluna responded extremely positively to the features and design of the service, with one young person saying: “I’ve had at least 20 (probably) mental health apps and I haven’t seen a single one like this. This is like, next level.”