Initiatives

Sector Challenge 1: Supportive online environments

INT-234-053

About

Why the work is being done

Prior to COVID-19, mental health services were often unable to provide all patients with the level of care they required because of a lack of resources. The increase in demand on services is having a negative impact on the provision of mental health services in the UK.  Read more here

Problem to solve

How might we increase our understanding of the challenges that remote working poses to the wellbeing of staff and volunteers at mental health charities. And how might we develop solutions to help with those challenges?
Expected outputs include:

  • Specific outcomes for this work will be developed together with the three nonprofit organisations in the cluster.
  • Prototypes that have been tested with service users and/or the organisations supporting them. A prototype here might be a product, service, experience, document or a comparison of existing tools.
  • Insights from research and testing
  • Documentation of the process and learnings to be openly published and shared with the sector.

Key project resources

1: Define your assumptions
This session was about defining the key assumptions we as a cluster have regarding the challenges staff and volunteers in mental health organisations are facing as a result of remote working.
2: User Profiling & User Research
We go through the fundamentals of creating a user profile and conducting user research.
3: User Research Findings
Research findings from interviews where we tested assumptions with 27 staff and volunteers (ranging in age from 24-89) from 9+ Charities and Charity Partners at mental health charities.
4: Design Sprint Kick-off
Learn about 'How might we's', Point Of View and Prototypes.
4.1: Design Sprint Ideation
This deck explains how the design sprint will be done and what an ideation session actually is
Prototype feedback - Breakup letter example
As a way to gather feedback after trialling the prototype you can ask the participants to write either a love letter or breakup letter to the service/prototype. This document is an example of a breakup letter to a the service.
Prototype test findings
Here you can find the survey results from the trial of the prototype
Prototype service document
A description of the Prototype and an estimated quote for a build
Text for Prototype
A document with the check-in messages, supportive suggestions and follow-up messages used in the Prototype
Guide to trial the prototype
This should be used together with the document 'text for prototype' and 'REFLECT_Testing data template'
Reflect_Testing Data template
To be used when trialling the prototype
Brainstorming session minutes
Notes from the brainstorming session with 4 charities in the mental health area
Follow-up messages - stress_anxiety focus
This document is a review by a mental health specialist of REFELCT’s follow-up messaging were we to focus on stress and anxiety. Should be used with the documents 'the-physiology-of-anxiety.pdf' and 'Stress Scale.pdf'
The physiology of anxiety
Provided by mental health specialist
Stress Scale
Provided by mental health specialist