EchoWellness
Overview
In April 2020, while we everyone was still reeling from the initial shock of COVID-19; I participated in a design hackathon in an effort to develop a solution that could alleviate some of the greatest difficulties being faced by Canadians as a consequence of the pandemic. Over a 2 week period we were required to identify problems faced by Canadians as a result of COVID and design a solution for the same. This solution was then pitched to a panel of judges. The winner of the hackathon was given the chance to take their idea forward.
Design Process
Week 1- Research: We spent the first week identifying the problem areas and trying to get narrow the scope of the problem. This included a round of online surveys (127 responses) and interviews with experts in the field
Week 2- Design: Based on all our data we spent the rest of the hackathon designing the solution framework as well as some assets for the product in order to prepare for the pitch
Problem Area
According to Dr. Roger McIntrye, MD FRCP, University of Toronto's professor of psychiatry and pharmacology there was [at the time] "no greater assault to mental health than the circumstances we're under right now."
With one in 5 Canadians experiencing mental health struggles pre-pandemic, we expected to see an upswing in anxiety and depression and suicide. Dr. McIntrye predicted that we would see an additional 8,000 to 10,000 suicides in the US (Canadian numbers unknown at the time) if nothing was done. On top of that, businesses and nonprofit organizations were scrambling to figure out how they can continue serving their clients.
Based on the interviews with experts as well as our initial surveys we decided to target the area of Mental Health First Aid.
Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training is designed to save lives. Structured after traditional First Aid training, it helps people to identify and address when people are in physical distress, Mental Health First Aid training helps identify and address when people are in mental distress. Both save lives until the person can be treated by a professional.
Online training is not a new concept. Yet none of the 400 MHFA training and certification courses are offered 100% online. This pandemic has made this service grind to a complete halt. Organizations and trainers are losing revenue and people aren't able to access life saving training.
Solution
Based on out observations we decided that the best way to tackle this problem would be to bring the existing MHFA courses online rather than building out own.
Thus we designed a framework to provide existing organizations a service and software solution that helps convert mental health training programs to an e-learning platform by offering digitization framework to organizations of our service as well as a portal for customers to access these resources.
Conclusion
By the end of the hackathon we had initial wireframes for the digitization framework ready and were trying to get in touch with potential users to test these frameworks.
While we did have the ambition to carry on, the prject was eventually abandoned as the the Canadian Mental Health Association started a program to provide mental health support online due to the pandemic.