Assist-MH digital technologies to support school mental health care

Abstract Rates of mental, emotional, and behavioral problems among youth are concerningly high, with one in four reporting a diagnosable disorder during the pandemic and its aftermath. Half of all lifetime mental health disorders begin by age 14, but on average, services are not received until 8 to 10 years after symptom onset. Schools are the primary mental health service setting for youth. Therefore, it is more critical than ever to develop effective, scalable products to support school mental health (SMH) providers as they struggle to meet the ever- growing mental health needs of students. Digital technologies offer a cost- and time-efficient medium to help SMH providers optimize their limited in-person time and augment their care to address the clinical needs of as many youth as possible. The goal of this SBIR is to create Assist-MH, a new interactive digital support system for SMH providers. The proposed Assist-MH product will offer an innovative suite of SMH supports, including an interactive treatment planning tool that generates provider-led and student self-paced MH strategies tailored to the student’s individual needs, along with built-in tools to facilitate monitoring student progress over time. In Phase I, we will focus on anxiety and depression for 12-to-17-year-old students as this age group has reported a concerning increase in these MH symptoms in recent years. To guide the development of Assist-MH, we will conduct stakeholder groups to gather initial input on current challenges and opportunities and specific recommendations to guide software design and content development. We will use the stakeholder input to finalize specific strategies and components from the Planning and Admin Centers to be built into the Phase I fully functioning prototype. MH providers will use the prototype with students they serve over a two-month trial period. We expect significant improvement in both provider and student outcomes as well as high usability, feasibility, and value ratings, yielding a positive proof of concept for the full Assist-MH product. Phase I findings will be used to guide Phase II refinement and expansion. As schools are the primary setting where youth obtain MH care, Assist-MH offers the potential to provide crucial support to SMH providers in their efforts to address our nation’s youth mental health crisis.