NYWell: Investigating the potential for a digital bridge to mental health care for transition-age youth
In collaboration with Dr. Michael Birnbaum from Northwell Health, Strong365 Lab conducted a randomized control trial that tested the efficacy of a digital outreach campaign paired with an interactive online care navigation platform to shorten pathways to appropriate mental health care for transition-age youth across New York State. The project was co-designed with young people with lived experience, their family members, and clinicians.
Using Google search and social media ads, the NYWell campaign targeted youth and their allies in the earliest stages of help-seeking, as they sought information about mental health symptoms and resources online. Users were led to an online hub that offered live connection to a peer mentor or counselor, a self-assessment mental health quiz, and educational resources – all designed to promote help-seeking.
The campaign successfully advanced help-seeking, offering a bridge to in-person care, particularly for youth reporting symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as youth located in low-income areas of the state. Overall, our findings suggest that self-reported symptomatology via online search impacts trajectories to care. An online care navigation team has the potential to serve as an important resource for individuals – including traditionally underserved populations – with emerging behavioral health concerns and help to guide the transition between early online information seeking to care.
OnTrackNY + Lipp Studios: A short film series focused on sharing stories of youth experiences with psychosis
Strong365 Lab collaborated with Amanda Lipp of Lipp Studios to develop a series of 6 short films about youth psychosis and Columbia Psychiatry’s early psychosis treatment program, OnTrackNY. Each film honors the lived experience of the storyteller and their support networks with the goal of delivering prosocial health messages to positively influence awareness, knowledge, attitudes, or behaviors surrounding mental illness.
The films have since been the subject of stigma reduction research, finding that video interventions, featuring individuals of diverse genders and races, can reduce stigma and encourage support-seeking behavior. These films continue to be used for digital engagement strategies to grow awareness of and referrals into the program.
UCSF Path Program for Early Psychosis: A rebrand, a new website, and community outreach
In partnership with UCSF Path Program for Early Psychosis and the UCSF web development and marketing team and based on conversations with Path Program participants and graduates, Strong365 Lab supported the rebrand of the Path Program, including new messaging, a new logo, and a revamped web presence, with the goal of growing mental health literacy and improving treatment rates among young people in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Additionally, to support recruitment for the SCZ AMP ProNET study and grow awareness for the Path Program across the San Francisco Bay Area, Strong365 Lab collaborated with the Path Program to launch a multichannel outreach program, including a partner marketing strategy, a quarterly email newsletter, an online symptom screener and improved community education resources.
UCLA Safe Steps Study: Improving outcomes for youth with suicide risk in emergency departments
Strong365 Lab is serving as a community partner for UCLA Health Safe Steps study, funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to evaluate evidence-based interventions for reducing suicide attempts and improving outcomes for youth presenting to emergency departments with suicidal concerns.
Serving on the steering committee, Strong365 advises on key strategic elements of study implementation and helps to lead its community partner strategy, ensuring that diverse youth and family insights are continuously incorporated into the team's approach. Outcomes of this 5-year, multi-site study has the potential to guide decision makers on how to best develop services and systems for youth experiencing suicidality, and a scalable model of care that may contribute to achieving national goals for suicide prevention.
Michigan Minds Empowered: A centralized support hub for youth
Network 180, on behalf of the state of Michigan’s expansion of early psychosis treatment services, enlisted Strong365 Lab to develop and grow a centralized digital support hub to guide youth experiencing symptoms of psychosis toward local care options statewide. We developed the Michigan Minds Empowered brand to surface stories of young people living with psychosis and provide educational resources about early psychosis to Michigan youth and families.
Today, Strong365 Lab continues its partnership with Network 180, tasked with expanding the site, including content and functionality, in order to grow the website’s organic traffic, improve the user journey by creating distinct pathways for youth and clinical audiences, and continue to normalize help-seeking behavior among youth with early psychosis across the state of Michigan.
OnTrackNY: Creating effective, culturally-attuned community outreach strategies
Strong365 Lab partnered with early psychosis treatment program OnTrackNY to improve the resonance of its statewide efforts to engage diverse communities and grow non-clinical referrals into the program. To inform the approach, we conducted a survey, followed by a series of listening sessions (semi-structured interviews) with key stakeholders, including OnTrackNY participants and graduates, their families, and OnTrackNY teams.
These insights, combined with a literature review focused on relevant pathways to care, guided the creation of a revised messaging framework, reflecting the evolution of the program and its core values as well as targeted strategies for each key audiences. This framework informed the design of new outreach materials for the 25+ OnTrackNY teams, ensuring clear, compelling, and unified messaging across New York state. Materials included a new program brochure, educational presentations for both clinical and community-based audiences, and family education resources.
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It requires new and traditional health systems to innovate alongside youth, families, clinicians, researchers, policymakers, technologists, social entrepreneurs, and media.
If you’d like to collaborate with our team on a project, drop us a line at info@strong365.org. Or, if you’re looking for other ways to support our mission, learn how you can get involved.