Codesigning a digital peer-support mental health prevention program for adolescents

Abstract

Background: For young people, peers play a key role in preventing the development of mental health and substance use problems. There is a need to upskill adolescents with skills and strategies to support peers on issues relating to their mental health and substance use, and to encourage early help-seeking. This presentation will describe the co-designing process for ‘Mind your Mate’, a digital prevention program for adolescents targeting peer support around depression, anxiety, and substance use.   Method: Mind your Mate is an updated version of a smartphone-based program of the same name trialled in 2020-2021. It features a four-lesson online module and a smartphone app. Creating the Mind your Mate program was an iterative and collaborative process involving experts and youths from diverse background: two youth researchers were involved in all stages of development (conceptualisation, content development, evaluation); a youth advisory board (with 8 members) were consulted three times in the process; and the whole program was reviewed by a psychologist.   Results: Through a co-design process that involved youths, psychologists, teachers, and field-leading researchers, this program has been tailored to meet the diverse needs of students. In the trialling phase, we anticipate that students participating in Mind your Mate will show significantly delayed substance use uptake, reduced anxiety and depression symptoms, and enhanced support network (compared to Control group).   Conclusion: Mind your Mate is an online prevention program collaboratively developed with youths that aims to upskill and empower adolescents to better support peers around mental health and substance use.