Connecting Students to Mental Health Resources Juliana Cook Adrienne Ivey Meredith Marks Nhien Tran

Mission Statement Momental: Help the moment you need it. We are designing an application to allow Stanford students to use the support network around them to get emotional support when they need it. Students often experience times of stress or emotional difficulty, and the formal resources available on campus, such as CAPS or the Bridge, are not sufficient in meeting their needs. Our application is meant to increase the availability of mental health resources, such as conversations with RAs, PHEs, and other people who care, and make it easier to utilize them.

Selected Interface and

Interview #2 Jessica, Freshman PHE People want to help others because they have received help Prevalence of Stanford duck syndrome? Open discussions about failure - a delicate balance Jessica, Freshman PHE former freshman PHE and current Terra RA anything ring a bell? this was a common thing we noticed - she was inspired to become a PHE because of the help she received early on notion of the supportive community around mental health presents an interesting challenge in how we can best leverage that. a fundamental reason for mental health issues on campus is Stanford duck syndrome why main stressor still if everyone knows it’s a thing? However, it’s also interesting that Jessica actually felt the syndrome’s prevalence caused it to lose its impact on students, an insight to keep in mind. due to experience of hearing people openly discuss failure in a class, Jessica wanted more programming in dorms that destigmatize failure. almost contradicts the previous point about widespread discussions about duck syndrome causing the issue to lose impact This implies that there is a delicate balance to how much programming or dialogue the campus should have about specific issues, maybe keep smaller groups

Revised POV #1 We met a… CAPS counselor stressed out about the flood of students coming to CAPS. We were amazed to realize that… more people are coming to CAPS both because mental health is becoming less stigmatized, and because it’s more prevalent on campus. It would be game-changing to… address mental health problems before they require the professional services of CAPS. it was a lot to synthesize, but this is what we came up with addressing issues PRE-CAPS

Revised POV #2 We met… students who have sought counselling services from CAPS. We were amazed to realize that… the process of getting an appointment and regularly meeting with counselors was stressful in and of itself. It would be game-changing to… remove the extra stressors introduced by the complex process of scheduling and connecting with professional counseling services on campus. other aspect, many students noted problems with CAPS!

destigmatize failure at Stanford? How might we… destigmatize failure at Stanford? this comes from the first POV, as it tries to address issues before CAPS by helping have a more open campus about failure to maybe help reduce prevalence of mental health issues

leverage the supportive community surrounding mental health issues? How might we… leverage the supportive community surrounding mental health issues? also from the first POV, we think there could be a lot of room for using the supportive community, volunteers, dorm staff, etc - people want to help other people

support CAPS patients outside of their appointments? How might we… support CAPS patients outside of their appointments? but inevitably students will go to CAPS, and so to the second POV about reducing extra stressors brought on by CAPS, we wondered how we could support patients in the long wait times between appointments

Experience Prototype #1 Removed the awkward process of starting the conversation Removed feeling of imposing Structured process of matching to best-fit resource Taking advantage of resources around you without feeling overwhelmed connect students with resources already made readily available to them sought to better connect students with resources already made readily available to them in the community, namely RAs, PHEs, and The Bridge Because situational, we made low-fi prototype to display the concept and see how users responded Subjects and pictures not included due to sensitive nature of topic and discussion Tested by setting up stressful situation, and providing options of seeing schedules of nearby resources if they wanted specific one, or being matched up with available one Testing assumptions that students are aware of the resources around them, but don’t know how to best use them even though resources are available for them, students feel like they are imposing if they utilize them. Worked very well, removed awkward conversation starting Knowing the person was making him/herself available removed imposing - they knew you were coming Structuring the process from you have a problem to here’s something you can do It picks resource for you - don’t feel overwhelmed All valid assumptions

Experience Prototype #2 Dedicated space to discuss with friends, but meeting strangers - not so much Degrees of separation required for face-to-face Anonymous chatrooms with specific themes more fitting for venting/ranting leverage existing communities Our second prototype tried to leverage community groups already surrounding students, namely their friend groups, or the greater Stanford community as a whole Similar situation again, presented with stressful situation, and then interface of options - chatting/arranging a meeting with group of friends, or anonymously with strangers Testing assumptions that students want to talk with their friends, but also anonymously with strangers Students would appreciate a dedicated place for regularly checking in about mental health much more mixed reaction here liked the concept of having a dedicated space to discuss mental health issues with a specific group of friends shied away from the idea of discussing with strangers, even anonymously against our assumption, as we thought commiserating with other students experiencing the same stressors would be beneficial if they were ever going to meet with a stranger, they wanted assurance that there were degrees of separation between them, an interesting new assumption if they were going to do anonymous, would want more lightweight, anonymous chatrooms with a specified theme as they said they could see themselves wanting to vent/rant in a space like that This touched on the assumption of regularly checking in with people, but brought up a new assumption of preferring those anonymous interactions in a more chatroom forum style.

Experience Prototype #3 students write to their therapists, receive advice and strategies Different than journalling to self - outsider’s perspective Method of holding patient accountable Advice? No thanks - “forced and unhelpful” Personalized toolbox of strategies/resources method of connecting students and therapists by allowing students to write to their therapists in between sessions and receive advice and strategies for dealing with their emotions in the moment used diary application Penzu to simulate digital journal, tested with subject who attends therapy set them up with upsetting scenario occurring between sessions and asking them to journal about it to their therapist then they were given actionable advice for handling emotions testing assumptions that that patients are interested in contacting their therapist in between sessions that patients are willing to actually sit down and write when they are struggling emotionally and that receiving advice based on their writing would be beneficial. writing to their therapist felt different than writing simply to themselves; they were more able to think about the situation from an outsider’s perspective, and more thoughtful about applying the tools from their therapist to their current situation even just a method of “checking in” with their doctor to stay accountable for meditating or taking a daily walk would also be helpful These points validated the first two assumptions we made - interested in the connection and writing about it felt negatively about the advice aspect of the prototype, stating it felt forced and unhelpful They commented that having advice they had previously put in a personalized “toolbox” would be more beneficial, as it would be drawing from resources they themselves had picked, a new insight and assumption to replace the third stated above.

Thank you! Questions?