Beyond Blue is a national, independent, not-for-profit organisation with a vision that everyone in Australia achieves their best mental health. Beyond Blue promotes mental health and wellbeing, strives to be a trusted source of advice and support, and works with others to prevent suicide. Beyond Blue Support Services has a telephone helpline, online forum and webchat services. Beyond Blue is undertaking a program of works to enhance these services across three focus areas.
Our approach
Portable and YLab partnered on a Human-Centred Design approach to explore the current state, understand the problem and identify opportunities before exploring potential solutions and generating ideas for the future state.
The Portable and YLab project team collaborated closely on the project approach, with YLab leading recruitment and engagements with young people aged 15-25, and Portable leading the broader population engagements and whole project oversight. We recruited people from multiple sources, including YLab’s network of young people, social media, Beyond Blue’s ‘Blue Voices’ panel and Portable’s recruitment partners.
We conducted a series of interviews and workshops across the three initiatives with people who had used mental health support services and with counsellors from Beyond Blue’s support services. We collaborated regularly across initiatives, comparing insights and looking for common themes. This informed a series of future state workshops that YLab and Portable ran to generate solutions for each initiative focus area.
Once we had ideas and solutions under each initiative, we presented the synthesised list of ideas and worked with Beyond Blue to prioritise them. We took the most desirable ideas and prioritised them from a viability and feasibility lens, with the potential to shift the dial on the initiative outcomes against effort for Beyond Blue to implement. We also discussed a potential roadmap for developing counsellor-matching options.
The outcomes
Beyond Blue is an essential part of people’s mental health support systems; a known and trusted organisation that is often available when other supports are not. We found many broad theme and need overlaps between the initiatives, particularly around feeling heard and validated, having agency and choice, and valuing lived experience.
When exploring best practice digital support for young people, we validated the following recommendations from an academic literature review:
- Trauma-informed practice and policy, including collaboration with diverse populations, personalisation of digital content, and the need for self-determination
- Multi-tiered model of care based on need
- Intervention flexibility and content delivery, including mobile app intervention content, flexible delivery with synchronous and asynchronous support, and interactive content or gamification
- Engagement, including multimodal approach and wrap-around support
In conjunction with additional findings around young people’s experiences with mental health support services, opportunities were identified to improve young people’s waiting experience, ensure they feel validated, improve inclusion and enhance privacy & confidentiality.
When exploring the counsellor-matching experience, we found that people’s needs and preferences are situational. Demographic or lived experience similarities have the potential to enhance connection with a counsellor. However, professional interest or experience is often sufficient to inspire confidence that the counsellor will be effective in providing support. When testing ways a person might be matched with a counsellor, the option to request counsellor characteristics and be matched by Beyond Blue was most desirable. However, it’s important to note that when someone is in distress, it’s more important that they’re able to speak to someone immediately.
When exploring referrals and post-counselling support, we found that contacting the following organisations can feel challenging, and onboarding can be frustrating and inefficient. We identified a clear set of needs for better support in the transition between services. From these insights and needs, we identified opportunities for a better-supported referral experience, enhanced post-engagement follow-up, and better-supported resources.
To enhance Beyond Blue’s support services, we prioritised the most desirable ideas across all initiatives to create a set of recommendations for taking action. These recommendations, coupled with our insights, gave Beyond Blue a clear pathway to make change and take action towards a better support service experience.
Reflections
"It was an amazing experience to collaborate with YLab and Beyond Blue on this project. For the first time, Beyond Blue could connect with young people through workshops, and the impact that had on the roadmap of enhancements cannot be overstated. I am excited to witness what the future holds for Beyond Blue and the critical work they do."
Olivia Gregory, Portable
Team
- Olivia Gregory - Senior Producer
- Belinda Donald - Principal Design Strategist
- Ryley Lawson - Senior Design Strategist
- Ruby Healey - YLab Consultant
- Fetle Wondimu - YLab Consultant
- Chelsea Lang - YLab Consultant
Sign up to our email newsletter to get updates about our events, work and research
