Augmenting Online Mental Health Support Services

Abstract

The Internet allows mental health organisations to provide services to more people via new models of care. Amongst these, online support groups are becoming increasingly popular. This model of mental health service provision includes moderators who read posts, recognise those that need attention and provide support via online responses. However, as these groups become more popular they risk becoming more difficult to manage due to the sheer volume of posts. This challenge can be addressed through computational linguistics techniques. This chapter reports on work with a mental health organisation on three components to help scale up the number of people they can support. The design aims to go beyond helping end-users and explores how design can support the wellbeing of the moderators themselves. The design of the three components is discussed: 1) A triage component automatically detects posts that need a prompt response. 2) An intervention generator (IG) generates a draft response for the moderator to use, for example a positive psychology intervention. These two can help in the management of a discussion forum, supporting positive behaviours, not just dealing in situations of distress. 3) A component for synchronous support through an augmented chat system.