Alaya’s consultants were commissioned by South Western Sydney PHN (SWSPHN) to develop an e-Mental Health Toolkit for consumers, carers and PHN funded mental health services within the region.

For our first step, we reviewed available e-Mental Health interventions including telephone support, online chat support, peer forums, structured online interventions and mobile apps, categorising each on their suitability for different cohorts:

• Adults
• Children and young people
• Parents and families
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
• Culturally and Linguistically diverse (CALD)
• LGBTIQ communities

Each intervention was assessed within the stepped care model framework, identifying interventions suitable for people with mild – moderate or moderate – severe mental illness.

We consulted the sector on their use and knowledge of e-Mental Health resources and platforms. Through clinicians providing input via face-to-face, teleconference or telephone interviews and an online survey, we identified barriers to clinicians adopting e-Mental Health resources as an adjunct to face-to-face interventions:

• Clinician’s time, capacity and awareness of resource
• Lack of skills, experience and confidence in using e-Mental Health interventions
• Difficult to easily identify reputable, evidenced-based resources
• Lack of cohort-specific resources.

We summarised our work to date in the e-Mental Health Scoping and Consultation Report for SWSPHN. Armed with this report, SWSPHN built the e-Mental Health Toolkit, a user-friendly online navigation resource for consumers, carers and the sector.

Image Credit: Marco Verch Professional Photographer and Speaker via Flickr Creative Commons