Digital Mental Health Services: What Are Your Thoughts?

A Community Message from our CEO Chief Enabler Kevin

Increasingly, Changing Minds is involved in discussions about Digital Mental Health. Most often these are positive discussions of opportunity, shared by Government agencies and service providers, and including commitment to understanding Lived Experience needs. But, I see potential challenges and missed opportunity.

My hope is for digital health services designed to share power between service and user. Services that challenge inequity, prejudice, and discrimination, and provide access and options for those whose needs are not currently being met. Because if digital mental health solutions are to provide new answers to long-term problems, it’s critical that they don’t simply provide a digital version of existing services, repeating the persistent problems and barriers we’re experiencing today.

Our Changing Minds community has said that it hopes for a transformed mental health service that will:

• Go beyond the mental health system and services to include physical health, social support, and spaces that give the ‘gift of hope’

• Create options that people can connect with to meet their wants, balancing services and self-referred, holistic, medication free, community, and all-hours choices

• Recognise people’s expertise and individual knowledge of needs, recognising different experiences and reducing the need to ‘prove’ illness or wellness

• Build equal relationships based on empathy and feeling safe.

Can we talk? I would like to hear about your own hopes for digital mental health solutions in transforming mental health and addiction.

What experience do you want from digital mental health services? What needs do you/ would you use digital solutions for?

I want to take your voice to the discussions we’re involved in, and share your interests and ideas. So if you’re interested in joining a Digital Mental Health discussion over Zoom, let me know! I’ll be scheduling a series of online Community meet-ups and would love to have you there. Please email kevin@changingminds.org.nz if you’d like to be part of this kōrero.

Noho ora mai,

Kevin