How we helped the Samaritans reach more people through Self-Help app
How we helped the Samaritans reach more people through Self-Help app
Samaritans work 24 hours a day with 20,000 trained volunteers, 201 branches and 150 staff to help hundreds of thousands of people. The pandemic escalated the numbers of people who needed support to unprecedented levels. The Samaritans saw that there was a need for additional support to complement their listening services, and we were here to help.
Starting with a discovery process, we worked with the Samaritans team and a cohort of their volunteers to understand the existing experience of someone experiencing a mental health crisis. We identified opportunities to refine and improve this support - crucially, the need to offer an alternative to telephone support. Additionally, we learned that there were opportunities to better support people before they reached that crisis point that so often led to their first Samaritans call.
Working closely in partnership with the Samaritans team, we designed and developed a mental health app.
The app allows people to get in touch without the need for a phone call, to access online support for their mental health, and to record their feelings so that they are better able to identify triggers of a mental health crisis.
Samaritan’s service users are often people who have reached a crisis point in their mental health. As a result, we were acutely aware throughout the process that we needed to be mindful of the pressures on service users. It was of critical importance that we put user needs at the very centre of our research, design and development processes. We needed to ensure the app actively helped and supported users at every stage.
While working in agile, and within budget at timeframes set by Samaritans grant funding, we ensured that the project was informed by a robust approach to data and research.
The app brings together best practice support for mental health. It allowed the Samaritans team to support more people than ever before, in new ways that are appropriate to their needs.
The app represented the charity's first digital programme, and has since been accessed by thousands of people. It will, however it was sunsetted in May 2024 with the Samaritans putting their focus into their listening services in the wake of the pandemic.
The Developer Society also worked with Samaritans to design and develop an intelligent yet easy-to-use volunteer dashboard.
