104842Can human centred design transform the way that young people access information about mental health?ClosedStudyInnovate UK"Suicide is a leading cause of death in young people (NCISH, 2017) and 75% of adult mental health difficulties manifest by the age of 18 (Murphy & Fonagy, 2012). The provision of effective affordable support is critical because the cost of health, education and social services for children in the UK with an emotional or behavioural disorder is already £1.5 billion per annum (Snell et al., 2013). Smartphones present a unique opportunity to deliver targeted emotional support because 96% of (6 million) UK teenagers already own a mobile device (Statista 2017, ONS, 2018). MeeTwo is a multi-award winning app that helps anxious teenagers talk about difficult things. Informed by the latest psychological research, MeeTwo is a safe place where teenagers can anonymously ask awkward or personal questions and get support from other young people. MeeTwo has been featured by [The Times][0], [The Guardian][1] and [Forbes][2]. In 2017 MeeTwo was recognised as one of the 100 most important innovations in education in the world by the prestigious HundrED.org. MeeTwo will represent British social enterprise at EXPO2020\. Currently, MeeTwo also features a prototype support directory and system for presenting educational resources and health information. However, by observing the way that our young users interact with these features we believe that we can do better. Just as we have transformed the provision of safe peer support our vision is to transform the way that teenagers access information about mental health and related services. We plan to use human centred design to uncover three main points for children aged 13 - 18 living in London. 1\. How teenagers expect and try to discover information and support around difficult mental health issues. Including: What makes young people trust or distrust a message or information? How does a teenager identify whether information is relevant to them? 2\. How teenagers in general discover information about things they are interested in. What styles of media are most engaging and how can large amounts of detailed information best be organised to facilitate engagement and understanding. 3\. What different language styles and approaches are most effective at reaching and informing teenagers. Does age or gender matter? Our approach is innovative precisely because we will use a human centred design approach to understand how young people choose to access information and look beyond the traditional methods of broadcasting information in order to identify creative solutions. [0]: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/finally-an-app-for-teens-their-parents-will-want-them-to-get-96t28p397 [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jan/09/anxious-about-exams-app-meetwo-mental-health-support [2]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisoncoleman/2018/02/13/how-two-social-entrepreneurs-are-providing-safe-peer-support-for-teenage-angst/#7d15cadc6da7"