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Blanca Paniagua was nervous.
The young man was scheduled to give a webinar about one of CalHope’s new experimental apps.
“When I saw the number of participants, I decided to use the app to calm down,” Paniagua said.
But Paniagua had some strategies from the app, including exercises to deal with anxiety.
A study conducted by the California Department of Public Health found that the state has seen a 20% increase in suicides among youth ages 10 to 18 since the pandemic. To address the growing mental health crisis, the Department of Health Services (DHCS) launched two new app-based programs, BrightLife Kids and Soluna, to serve as first response resources for children and their participants up to the age of 25. raised.
“I had no idea how to express myself,” said Esther Verdugo, another Soluna participant. Before she started using her built-in journaling exercises, she was feeling anxious from her busy life. “People around me always said I didn’t know how to share my emotions, so I shared my emotions through her diary. And all these things I… .
The release of both apps is part of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Kids Mental Health Master Plan, launched with a proposed $4.7 billion budget for 2022. Both apps are free and focus on providing a variety of resources.
The BrightLife Kids app was introduced to help children under 13 in California access mental health resources with their parents or guardians. Children can navigate the app with their own guidance and request family or one-on-one coaching.
The Soluna app is made for California teens and young adults ages 13 to 25, and is designed to help California teens and young adults ages 13 to 25, and has interviewed more than 300 Californians about the things that matter to them, including body image, identity discovery, anxiety, depression, and more. Based on Soluna’s research, which interviewed young people from across the country, it covers a variety of topics. .
These topics are arranged as a series of constellations within the app, and each star within the constellation features a different exercise, including articles, podcasts, videos, and quizzes, all built into the app. One of his exercises, a meditative breathing exercise, was created in partnership with Apple’s Calm app, his 2017 App of the Year.
“We found that the needs of younger children are quite different from those of older children and youth,” said Amrita Sehgal, vice president of business operations at Brightline, which developed Brightlife Kids. . She said: “Especially with young children, there is a great need to involve parents, carers and family members in their care. In contrast to older children, people want to interact more independently. You might think so.”
For many Californians, getting help for mental health issues hasn’t always been easy. “If you look at health care in the United States right now, there’s a shortage of medical professionals, a shortage of therapists, even psychiatrists,” said Dr. Beth Pausic, vice president of clinical excellence and safety at Kooth Digital Health. “There is a shortage.” This is especially difficult for teens of color and LGBTQ teens.
The app’s primary focus is on prevention and early intervention, as it is rooted in the belief that mental health should be an ongoing conversation, not just when a problem arises. Individual coaching sessions serve as a first line of response, not a replacement for a therapist or other traditional behavioral health modalities.
“Mental health needs to be a conversation we have, rather than a trending thing when something bad happens in the news,” Pausich said. “While coronavirus has brought attention to mental health, there is always a mental health crisis. We just don’t talk about it.”
Children and adolescents interested in using the Service can download it from the Apple App Store. And his BrightLife Kids on Google Play Store with Soluna will soon follow.
This article is part of a collaboration between The 74 and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
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