Young people who visit Orygen’s headspace centres at Melton, Werribee and Glenroy, as well as its Parkville clinic, will now be able to access Orygen Digital’s Moderated Online Social Therapy (MOST) platform.
The platform provides clinician-supported and personalised therapy to young people aged 16-25 years who are experiencing mental ill-health. MOST offers young people the opportunity to access online therapeutic content, clinical support, and peer support when and where they need it.
Professor Mario Alvarez-Jimenez, director of Orygen Digital said that, although MOST had been particularly beneficial in 2020 in the context of COVID-19, it had been developed over 10 years to address a long-standing need to integrate evidence-based, engaging digital interventions with youth mental health services.
“Young people’s lives have been disrupted in 2020, and we know this is impacting their mental health, increasing demand for mental health services,” Professor Alvarez-Jimenez said.
“MOST will allow young people to access support while they’re still on the waiting list for in-person support, and between therapy sessions.
“Staff in the headspace centres had already expressed enthusiasm about being able to use MOST to enhance and extend support to young people at all stages of their mental health journey,” he said.
Anh, a young person who uses MOST said the digital platform made her feel like she could interact with people who understood what she was going through. “They're there to help me, as well as I'm there to help them,” she said.
“When I'm on MOST I feel like I'm expressing myself a lot better and telling them how I deeply feel. It makes me feel more like I have a family that understands where I'm coming from.”
The latest version of the platform includes a new set of activities based on distress tolerance strategies, developed based on feedback from young people and clinicians and designed to address and alleviate the heightened uncertainty and distress being felt by young people in Victoria due to COVID-19.
headspace centres at Melton, Werribee and Glenroy will be the first of Victoria’s centres to roll-out MOST. All 28 Victorian headspace centres will be offered the service by mid-2021, thanks to funding from the Victorian Government and further support from the Telstra Foundation.
MOST will also be available through 14 state-funded specialist youth mental health services, and is already available through Orygen’s specialist youth mental health service.
To learn more visit: www.orygen.org.au/MOST