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Beyond traditional therapy: new avenues for mental well-being

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Beyond traditional therapy: new avenues for mental well-being

How DMZ alumni Blue Guardian, Layla and OPTT Health are pioneering change.

As we bid farewell to summer days, let’s keep in mind that the changing seasons can often bring a subtle shift in our emotions, making it all the more important to seek mental health support when needed.

In light of World Mental Health Day, DMZ wanted to shine a light on how the landscape of mental health care is evolving rapidly, thanks to innovative startups like Blue Guardian, Layla and OPTT Health.

These DMZ alumni are at the forefront of a transformative wave that’s reshaping the way we address mental well-being. Here’s what they shared with us about the future of mental well-being support.

Blue Guardian

As mental health technology evolves, how do you envision the future landscape of mental well-being support?

In the future, AI-driven systems will offer personalized, accessible, and continuous mental well-being support by analyzing individual mental health data, enabling early interventions, therapeutic conversations, and aiding clinicians in making faster, more accurate decisions for a broader population.

How does Blue Guardian’s emotional analysis identify potentially harmful language in communication on children’s devices?

Blue Guardian employs an innovative approach to safeguard children’s emotional well-being in their digital interactions. Its advanced AI algorithms are specifically designed to detect potential mental health cues and signs of emotional distress in their language. When concerning language is identified, Blue Guardian engages children through a chatbot interface, encouraging them to share their feelings and emotional state in a non-intrusive manner. The chatbot then compiles a report for mental health professionals, enabling early intervention and support, ultimately enhancing children’s emotional well-being in the digital age.

How does Blue Guardian empower parents to be more in tune with the mental health of their children?

A multifaceted support system; through real-time alerts, parents receive timely notifications when potentially concerning language or emotional distress is detected in their child’s digital interactions, allowing for immediate intervention. The system’s detailed reports offer a comprehensive overview of their child’s emotional state, enabling parents to identify patterns and areas of concern.

 

Layla


As mental health technology evolves, how do you envision the future landscape of mental well-being support? 

We envision a future of highly personalized and integrated healthcare, including mental health, using advanced platforms to improve accessibility, timeliness, and specialization. Data-driven technologies will provide valuable insights for personalized mental health journeys and treatment plans. Ethical AI may enhance backend operations and potentially augment mental health care, but concerns about efficacy and patient safety remain in this evolving field.

How does Layla ensure clients receive effective and personalized care from its therapists throughout their therapeutic journey?

Layla Care prioritizes client-centric mental health services by partnering with skilled, diverse therapists. Our therapists speak 27 languages, 35% are BIPOC, and 27% specialize in LGBTQ2S+ issues. With an average of 10 years of experience, they can cover up to 35 primary concerns. Our selection process ensures the highest standards, with only 25% of applicants accepted. Each client is assigned a dedicated Care Coordinator for support throughout their journey.

How does Layla’s approach to therapist-client matching foster a strong bond between clients and therapists, and what specific factors are taken into account during this process?

When matching clients with therapists, we consider clinical, logistical, and interpersonal fit. Interpersonal factors greatly impact therapy success, with over 70% relying on them. Many of our clients prefer matches based on personal identifiers like gender, language, race, disability, or LGBTQ2+ status.

OPTT

OPTT, a presenting company at the 2022 OBIO Investment Summit, selected for Morgan Stanley's Multicultural Innovation Lab — OBIO - Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization

As mental health technology evolves, how do you envision the future landscape of mental well-being support? 

Current mental healthcare faces scalability issues due to a shortage of clinicians. While machines can’t replace human connection, technology can enhance clinicians’ abilities, offering curated content for patient self-learning and generating initial responses. Mental health technology can also help determine individual care needs, reducing wait times for less intensive resources and prioritizing care appropriately.

How does OPTT empower clinicians to deliver high-quality mental health care in a flexible and accessible manner?

OPTT offers two cutting-edge products for data-driven patient care. The first is structured CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) content that empowers patients to engage at their own pace, while clinicians provide personalized feedback on assignments. This approach enables clinicians to assist 3-4 patients per hour, significantly boosting their capacity.

The second product leverages AI/ML algorithms to evaluate patient mental status, predict care adherence with 70% accuracy (four weeks in advance) and suggest the most appropriate care path. These algorithms also highlight relevant patient work, allowing clinicians to review and modify feedback efficiently. As a result, clinicians can spend just 10-15 minutes per patient while upholding the highest standards of care quality.

Can you discuss the significance of continuous remote monitoring in maintaining and improving patients’ mental health over time, and how OPTT’s tool facilitate this process? 

When devising a long-term care plan, the primary consideration is enabling symptom monitoring outside of clinical settings, akin to how a glucometer aids diabetic patients. That is what we have been trying to do with our remote monitoring algorithms; to remotely monitor patients’ mental status and predict and prevent the next episode before it happens, adopting a proactive rather than a reactive approach. 

In crafting these solutions, user-friendliness is paramount. The most effective technologies are either entirely passive or require minimal effort from the user. This is why we’re integrating our natural language processing algorithm with other indicators, such as voice biomarkers and sleep and activity patterns gathered by devices like Fitbits. This amalgamation aids in comprehensive remote mental status evaluation. While our expertise lies in natural language processing algorithms, we actively collaborate with other tech innovators to enable us to integrate their advancements into our assessment tools, aiming for a holistic, remote understanding of a patient’s mental well-being.

We hope you’re as inspired as we are from seeing so many companies like Blue Guardian, Layla and OPTT Heath bringing tech and innovation to the field of mental health support. Keep up with how our other tech startups are solving unique challenges by subscribing to our TechTalk newsletter here.

Supporting moms and dads through the ups and downs of parenthood: How Alli Therapy is taking a parent-centric approach to mental health

On Wednesdays, we startup.

To celebrate our women-identifying founders, we’ve put together ‘On Wednesdays, we startup’, a blog series dedicated to putting women founders center stage to acknowledge their work, complexities and wins!

We hope to push women-founder stories forward and share lessons learned and insights for other aspiring women entrepreneurs.

This week, we sat down with the Co-Founders of Alli Therapy, Sarah Rennick and Cherry Xu, to learn more about Alli Therapy’s tailored mental health solutions for parents, and their thoughts on the massive growth in the mental health space. Plus, we had the chance to connect with one of their certified therapists, Michelle Winterburn, MSW, RSW, to unpack some of the biggest misconceptions about parenting therapy and more.

Alli Therapy is an online emotional and mental health tool to support families through the journey of parenthood, with more than 34 million parents in North America living with mental health issues their mission is to support moms and dads through all stages of parenthood.

Sarah Rennick, Co-Founder & CEO of Alli Therapy

Before founding Alli Therapy, Sarah founded Mama Mobile, an in-home wellness service company for moms and moms-to-be. Unfortunately, as a result of the pandemic and lockdown restrictions, Mama Mobile had to cease operations. Wanting to still support the community of parents Sarah had fostered, she reached out to her clientele to gain a better sense of what they felt parents alike needed help with.

“I reached out to the Mama Mobile community to gain a better understanding of what parents actually needed — to see what services or solutions would make their lives easier as they moved through parenthood, said Sarah.

This is how the idea for Alli Therapy came about. While the majority of digital mental health and therapy solutions out there provide great services that are highly needed, rarely do these solutions offer services designed specifically for parents.

“20% of mothers today have postpartum depression, and 57% of parents say parenting is a top source of anxiety,” said Cherry. “A lot of parents experience mental health problems, yet we only ever highlight the rosy side of parenthood. We want to destigmatize therapy for parents, and highlight that everyone has the same doubts when it comes to parenting.”

Cherry Xu, Co-Founder & CTO of Alli

Cherry was also working in the wellness space before founding Alli Therapy, and was introduced to Sarah while she was leading Mama Mobile. Recognizing the opportunity in service marketplaces and being a mental health advocate herself, Cherry pitched herself as a Co-Founder to Sarah, and the rest was history!
Alli Therapy provides an all-in-one solution for busy parents to connect with a therapist that best suits their needs. With the use of matching technology, users are connected with therapists that are not only a great fit for the user’s stage of parenthood, but also their personality.

“We provide all of our users with a free intro session to ensure they feel comfortable with their matched therapist, ” said Sarah. “You’d be surprised at how many people abandon therapy due to a lack of fit, and making sure our users felt good about their matched therapist was really important to us.”

“20% of mothers today have postpartum depression, and 57% of parents say parenting is a top source of anxiety,” said Cherry. “A lot of parents experience mental health problems, yet we only ever highlight the rosy side of parenthood. We want to destigmatize therapy for parents, and highlight that everyone has the same doubts when it comes to parenting.”

The mental health startup landscape is beginning to see a real shift as funding has reached a record $852 million USD globally in the first quarter of 2021, nearly twice the amount raised during the same period in 2020. Cherry attributed the industry’s momentum to the rise of mental health awareness.

“We’re seeing high profile celebrities speak up about their own experiences with mental health, and while we still have a ton of work to do, the stigma is slowly beginning to lift. People like Meghan Markle, The Duchess of Sussex, and Simone Biles, the US olympic champion, are opening up about their experiences, and this sparks conversations around mental health, while also demonstrating that we all face our own challenges, and asking for help is okay.”

Sarah added that seeing TalkSpace, one of the largest providers of online and mobile therapy in the world, IPO earlier this year really solidified the need for mental health services and the opportunity for startups to innovate.

Alli Therapy prides itself on having therapists that actually speak parent. Users can find individual or couples’ support with therapists who specialize in all types of parenthood challenges.

Michelle Winterburn, MSW, RSW, Alli Therapist

Michelle Winterburn, one of Alli Therapy’s therapists, highlighted that stigma and financial restrictions are some of the biggest barriers when it comes to parents accessing mental health services.

“Many people think seeking therapy means they are a failure. Although we have come a long way in shifting the perception of mental health and wellness, the stigma persists.

Finances are always a consideration, especially with a new family. All Alli therapists are licenced and registered, making their fees reimbursable through most extended healthcare plans or as an eligible medical expense on taxes. Therapy may be more affordable than you think.”

Michelle believes Alli Therapy’s approach when it comes to helping parents is truly unique. She highlights three main pillars that differentiate their services from other mental health providers: specificity, accessibility, and affordability.

“The journey of parenthood comes with unique challenges at each milestone. Alli Therapy supports clients from pregnancy planning to empty nesters, which can be a 16-20 year journey. All of our therapists have a special interest in helping parents and have taken additional training in helping parents navigate parenthood related challenges.

It can be hard to find specialized clinics in rural areas. We make specialized therapy accessible to anyone, regardless of location. Further, getting out of the house takes a lot of logistics and planning for parents. Alli Therapy makes it easy for them to have sessions from the comfort of their own homes.

Lastly, Alli Therapy is committed to not leaving any parent behind. We don’t want anyone to not seek therapy due to budget constraints. To accommodate clients on parental leave who may not have insurance, we offer a sliding scale option to offer our services to those who cannot afford the full price.”

Michelle also stresses that seeking parenting therapy does not equate to failure. “This is a huge misconception in the space, but we are all interconnected, and sometimes we need to seek help as much as we are giving help.

As parents we are always giving. When the pandemic hit, we had to continue to give –  but without the support of others in the ways we once had. This takes a heavy toll on many of us, and having a safe space to talk about the highs and lows of parenting with a skilled, non-judgmental, therapeutic lens can make a huge difference for so many.”

 

Want to learn more about Alli Therapy’s personalized support for parents? Check out their website to learn more.

 

Alli Therapy is looking to fuel their growth to provide more parents with the services they need. Interested in teaming up with Alli to improve mental health support for parents? Reach out to Sarah Rennick and Cherry Xu!