Mental health app for refugees and war survivors

According to the UN Refugee commetee there are 110 million forcibly displaced people worlwide:
62,5 are internally displaced
36,4 are refugeesUnfortunately, refugees and war survivors face the highest risk of post-traumatic stress. A meta-analysis of 181 studies has shown that refugees and asylum seekers experience a high level of mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety. The research revealed that between 9% and 31% of refugees suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, between 5% and 44% experience depression, and between 6% and 44% struggle with anxiety.Given that there are currently an estimated 110 million people in need of psychological assistance, and there are significantly fewer psychologists available, a scalable solution is required.

Our solution is an ecosystem of psychological support for refugees and war survivors worldwide, which includes raising awareness about the consequences of psychological trauma, building a supportive community, and providing training in self-help practices through digital platforms.Based on the increasing use of mobile applications and online services in the mental health field, as well as the challenge of finding a sufficient number of psychologists, we have decided to promptly set up services with online access from anywhere in the world.We have developed a psychological support program for refugees based on scientifically proven methods of psychological assistance. This program has been completed by 150 individuals, and their feedback can be viewed at the following link.We have created a community that has brought together women from all over the world. We are currently in the process of developing an MVP mobile app, which is intended to scale our project in the future.

Our solution is suitable for the over 13 million individuals affected by military actions in Ukraine, including:
- Refugees forced to leave the country, seeking temporary asylum in neighboring countries (primarily women, both with and without children) (according to UN data, there are more than 8 million refugees from Ukraine recorded across Europe).
- Internally displaced persons from occupied territories and dangerous regions relocating to safer areas within the country (according to UN data, there are more than 5 million internally displaced people in Ukraine).
- Those remaining in Ukraine in potentially hazardous areas, experiencing stress due to the threat to life.
These individuals face the following challenges:
They are frightened by their own reactions.
They lack support.
They are insufficiently informed about how their mental health responds to stress.
The use of mobile applications and online mental health services is increasing in worlwide. Hence, an ecosystem comprising a mobile application, online course, and online community is the best solution due to its accessibility.
Our solution will enable individuals to have quick and easy access to a platform for mutual support and information on maintaining their mental health. It will provide tools for self-help (allowing regular diagnosis of psychological state)

Our team consists of a psychological unit, a technological unit, and a customer service unit.Most of the team was forced to leave their country and faced the consequences of adapting to life in another country.We regularly collect feedback on the programWe regularly collect fresh and relevant inquiries from prospective program participants and update the program as requested. (In group and individual format, written and live)We have weekly meetings with the community, where we update the dynamics of their condition and collect their current agenda.We have ambassadors from our program participants who scale our solution.We incorporate program alumni into our quality improvement workflows.Ukrainian psychologists were involved at the stage of concept development and filling of the product, and we plan to continue cooperation with them.

We created a sequence of lessons and steps for one of our courses. Launched the course to our psychology alumni community (125 people). Collected feedback.

The thing is that our team has no experience in the nonprofit sector. We combine the competences of technology, psychology, customer service. But none of us knows how to transform these competencies into a strong and really useful product, service and enterprise for the target audience. And for us as well as for our target audience, first the Ukrainian refugees and then all the people who found themselves in the situation of refugees and witnessing the war, there is a great chance that there is such a special world progressive hub at the forefront of solving social problems through the synergy of the business approach and technological approach.

A unique set of competencies of people who live this situation with their own skin and biography. This is precisely why we need external forces that can be used as leverage in relation to knowledge, which we are only now grasping, while you already have international experience and the most advanced. And we need to save time in order to be able to help as many people as possible and offer the best solution in the refugee situation.

The innovation of our project is in the mix of approaches: we are bilding ecosistem which mission is not to leave a war survivor alone.
The ecosistem itself consist of:
- firstly, online course which is the enitial PTSD preventer and educator,
- secondly, on a comunity of our abassadors after the cource supporting each other,
- thirdly, mobile application which is a sourse of quick instruments to take care of oneselves in order not to be left alone in the expirience of trauma of war witnesing or refuging.
Thus, our approach the combination of three main approaches:
- ecological support,
- informational\wellness compain
- educational

Trauma is already unfair enough, so no one should be left alone in it. For previous generations of humankind, trauma was about shame and loneliness. Our mission is to shift from that outdated philosophy of trauma, which actually gives more power to the invader, to a modern humanistic approach to post-trauma as an experience supported by a vibrant community.
Our theory of change lies in the approach that acquiring post-trauma skills for personal recovery and community healing should be as "fashionable" and "on-the-go" as using Duolingo for language learning, Coursera for high school classes, or Match.com for dating.
Our theory of change is based on the combination of the healing power of community engadgement and finding solutions through skill education. Our overarching mission is to address the deficit of psychologists in the Ukrainian market. With 8 million refugees abroad and 5 million internally displaced persons in the country, and only 60,000 psychologists available, we are obligated to make psychological support as accessible as possible.We regularly survey our online course participants and based on 137 feedback questionnaires, we received an average course effectiveness score of 9.3 out of 10.

Our impact goals for next year:
- We want to reach 5,000 Ukrainian refugees and war witnesses

To do this, we will:
- Release the MVP of a psychological support mobile app
- Conduct 6 streams of an online course
- Hold a 3-day offline retreat for refugees in Europe
- Develop a P2P format of interaction in our community

Our impact goals for the next 5 years:
- We want to reach 10% of Ukraine's traumatized population
- We see ourselves as an ecosystem integrated with other technology products

To achieve this, we:
- Partner with cutting-edge trauma care expert practitioners to translate their approach into a digital format
- Integrate AI to simulate a dialogue with a therapist on an individual request
- Conduct integration with wearable heart rate variability devices to better diagnose the psychological state of users
- Conduct integration with existing services helping refugees with employment, housing, legal, medical and other issues
- Adding a social networking function: a community in the mobile app, dating and communication, support in social adaptation

Right now we majer the effectevness of our project by folowing criterias:- feedback from our participants for online courses, our rate is now 9.3- the number of subscribers in our social networks- number of course requests- number of participants on the course- number of enthusiasts who join the alumni club after the courseIn the future after the mobile application on the market would launch:- Self-diagnostics by the internal questionnaire of the MF in the dynamics over time- Subjective evaluation of the user's benefit:- Subjective sense of stress level,- the return of a sense of subjectivity,- possibility to make further plans- User activity (what % of regular and progressing self-diagnosis)- Total number of users receiving support- Increase in users per month- Testing on Beck scales: depression, anxiety over time- Testing for PTSD risks over time- Number of users who came by recommendation

Our technology is a combination of:
- rapid informational/educational resources by mobile application devoted to PTSD prevention;
- intense online course (consisting of regular Zoom-meetings and interactive communication in Telegram) of psychological support and ecological adaptation of refugees/war survivors experience;
- online community (also consisting of regular Zoom-meetings and interactive communication in Telegram) mutual support each other by course allumnies which gives boost effect for the previous two phases and turnes suvivors in to supporters for each other.

10 part-time staff

2 years

We are creating an ecosystem where we want to organize the funding of our project in such a way that we can give paid work to Ukrainian psychologists and developers, as well as any other Ukrainian professionals who are forced to lose their jobs and need professional and financial support to implement their professional projects and initiatives, be it playback theater, creating a documentary film, ballet or yoga classes, copywriting, marketing, etc.These are the kinds of initiatives our alumnae voiced: - An art club and playback theater from an alumna based in Gdansk - a documentary or children's cartoon from an alumna who is in Montreal - online classes in dance-fusion from a ballerina in Italy - a project for the social recovery of the conscripts from an alumna based in the German countryside - a copywriting service to promote PTSD prevention and psychological recovery from a participant in Kharkiv

A mobile psychological support platform for refugees and war survivors:We Help:refugees and war survivors in UkrainePeople experiencing the psychological consequences of military conflicts as victims and refugeesPeople who have experienced psychological traumaSurvivors of trauma nowPeople going through stress and pressure of circumstancesPeople working on their mental healthIn a situation where:Address the problem:A psyche that is not coping with new challengesadapting to new circumstancesrebuilding one's lifeintegration into a new societyimproving the quality of life when you are not satisfied with your current levelWith the help of the psychological support and care service teplo:A knowledge base of training and expert content is available to participants through courses, articles, webinars and lectures.We develop a community for communication and supportAnd obtain value/results for the end user:Understand (be informed) about how their own psyche, brain and body workKnow and use tools to improve mental well-beingSystemically improve the quality of life (know how and do it)reduce the burden of responsibilityfeel cared for and supportedease the process of integrating into a new societyIncome streams:Sponsorship:Support for companies/businesses/corporationsb2b fundingSocial programs of large corporations and brandsFoundation supportb2g fundingprivate foundationsgovernment funding for refugee programsCrowdfundingcrowdfunding platformsdigital philanthropy - when an individual wants to pay for a service for a person/groupplatform business model (partnerships with third parties) :To sell services to therapists (commission)for companies and sites (commission/sales leads for them from our client base)we get paid for the opportunity to place on the siteadvertisement:books (psychology/self-development) - publishers and authorseventsfoundations and programsrelocation (integration) companies and organizationsonline courses/medicine/sports/yoga practicesales of wearable devices

Income streams:

Sponsorship:
Support for companies/businesses/corporations
b2b funding
Social programs of large corporations and brands
Foundation support
b2g funding
private foundations
government funding for refugee programs
Crowdfunding
crowdfunding platforms
digital philanthropy - when an individual wants to pay for a service for a person/group

platform business model (partnerships with third parties) :
To sell services to therapists (commission)
for companies and sites (commission/sales leads for them from our client base)
we get paid for the opportunity to place on the site

advertisement:
books (psychology/self-development) - publishers and authors
events
foundations and programs
relocation (integration) companies and organizations
online courses/medicine/sports/yoga practice
sales of wearable devices