Revolutionary global support for youth mental health
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Jan. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — After a successful launch in Canada during October’s Elevate festival, Kids Help Phone (KHP) has unveiled its new initiative, Accelerator. KHPduring the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland. Accelerator KHP is positioned as an innovative way of supporting young people’s mental health and wellbeing, putting them at the center of their experiences like never before. This initiative aims to address the growing global mental health crisis and provide young people with a personal experience, accompanied by deep clinical expertise as well as cutting-edge technology partnerships.
For more than 35 years, KHP has been a safe and trusted space for young people to express themselves freely. In fact, 75% of KHP users confide in things they’ve never dared to share before, and as of 2020, the organization has facilitated more than 22 million interactions with young people across Canada. By combining cutting-edge technology with the empathy of clinical experts, KHP is uniquely positioned to deliver transformative solutions that meet the evolving needs of young people. The accelerator draws on KHP’s unrivaled expertise, which includes Canada’s largest youth mental health data set, cutting-edge artificial intelligence tools and decades of experience. KHP is revolutionizing youth mental health solutions.
“Global Accelerator Launch KHP at Davos 2025 marks a transformational milestone for Kids Help Phone and a huge step forward for addressing youth mental health around the world,” said Katherine Hay, president and CEO of Kids Help Phone. “As a global leader in online mental health innovation, we are committed to meeting the complex needs of young people through strategic partnerships and international collaboration. Accelerator KHP it embodies the future of mental health and wellbeing solutions and puts young people at the center of their care. »
Accelerator KHP builds on the success of KHP’s Feel Out Loud movement by introducing innovative tools such as ‘Resources Around Me’. This free platform connects youth, families and communities to over 40,000 trusted services across Canada, including a comprehensive database of certified mental health and wellness apps. Key projects include:
- Asela – KHP’s cutting-edge call center platform that automates tasks for advisors, allowing them to spend less time on administration and more time on the clinical experience.
- Services desert / microtargeting services – A tool for mapping gaps in services and visualizing KHP data.
- Trends panel – A tool that analyzes user interactions with wellness topics on social media, allowing KHP to better understand online conversations and how young people prefer to interact with mental health-related content in digital spaces.
- FAIIR: Identification and referral of frontline support issues – An innovative KHP AI prototype that reliably and automatically predicts clinical issues during conversations and translates youth language into a clinical context.
By expanding its global reach, KHP aims to spark an international movement that puts the mental well-being of young people at the center of attention.
To participate in this movement and learn more about the accelerator KHPvisit www.acceleratorkhp.ca.
Fast facts
- KHP has the most unique data set of its kind in Canada, with over 45 million real-time data points that reflect the voices and experiences of young people.
- 75% of service users share things with KHP that they have never told anyone before.
- Suicide is the second leading cause of death among young people in Canada, which has the third highest suicide rate among developed countries. Almost a quarter of interactions with KHP are about suicide-related issues.
For media inquiries: media@kidshelpphone.ca.
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Implementation of initiatives such as accelerator KHP asks a fundamental question: how can technology even better meet the specific needs of youth in the face of ever-changing mental health challenges? Let us approach this reflection together to present a more promising future to our young people.
