Boosting Mental Health : The ePsyclinic initiative
A conversation with the ePsyclinic team that has created both a helpline and a platform for one on one counselling sessions to help people cope with the stress created by COVID
What led you to be involved in this initiative? How did you discover the problem surrounding mental health issues due to COVID?
Being one of the leading startups in the Indian Mental Health Space, as the COVID19 crisis started to unfold, we could see the fallout impact it would have on people’s mental health. COVID19 has created situations that are otherwise high risk for causing mental and emotional health challenges. Social disruption, furloughs, job losses, health issues, and isolation have been known to contribute to depression, anxiety, and chronic stress and COVID19 is creating these situations for the masses.
This called for creating an initiative to support anyone in the present, dealing with distress to get help and feel better thereby preventing long term issues. We identified 6 focus groups, including professionals, grey-collared workers, women, seniors, students, and healthcare & frontline workers, and created Solution Focussed Talk Therapy modules for each of these 6 groups. We created a 24*7 therapy space, on text/chat and call with 100’s of psychologists to enable people to get help that is instant, solution focussed and makes them feel better instantly.
What is the current traction on the ground?
We have been live for 2+ weeks with the 24*7 therapy and counseling space. Currently, we are doing 380+ high quality 30–35 mins sessions per day with people for who COVID19 caused distress, anxiety, and hopelessness in our 6 target focus groups. The sessions are being instrumental in helping people keep up their hope, and stay on. 94% of the ones who sought help have said they will recommend this service to others and are thankful that this exists. 30% of the people who are coming to seek help do not have the means and resources to otherwise afford mental health help.
94% of the ones who sought help have said they will recommend this service to others and are thankful that this exists. 30% of the people who are coming to seek help do not have the means and resources to otherwise afford mental health help.
In the last couple of weeks, we have made partnerships with a state government (have gone live with Rajasthan govt.) and many startups. This will enable taking the same high-quality help to a massive scale in the coming weeks.
What is the plan for the next few weeks? Where would you need support on scaling up?
We want to serve more State Governments, startups, distressed groups of SMEs and would need additional support as we reach scale in the coming weeks to enable our solution to reach masses We would also need proactive support in reaching out to governments, startups and other SMEs.
