InSight - mobile psychologist/coach

1.Problem

According to WHO, one in four people thinks about death. Thoughts of death are not suicidal yet, but they often prevail in difficult periods of life. Not all people have the understanding and opportunity to get psychological help. If everyone had received psychological help or support at an early age (16-28), many issues would have been solved easier and differently.

2.Solution

We have a chatbot-app, which sends a user a question every day. These questions help him better understand himself or others and also get a psychological assistance.

3.How could your solution positively change the lives of millions if it was scaled globally?

It's free, it can be in different languages (now we have three: English, Russian, Kyrgyz). People don't need to answer. We can make surveys, send videos, photos, links, suggest free and paid services. This app can support people psychologically during their difficult periods of life. 

• Close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every year.
• Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 15–29-year-olds.
• 79% of global suicides occur in low- and middle-income countries. (WHO statistics)

While the link between suicide and mental disorders (in particular, depression and alcohol use disorders) is well established in high-income countries, many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis with a breakdown in the ability to deal with life stresses, such as financial problems, relationship break-up or chronic pain and illness.

In addition, experiencing conflict, disaster, violence, abuse, or loss and a sense of isolation are strongly associated with suicidal behaviour. Suicide rates are also high amongst vulnerable groups.

Most of people who has suicidal thoughts or does suicide attempts do not think about getting a psychological assistance (due to misunderstanding or lack of money) or live in regions  lack of psychologists or counsellors.

We would like to reduce the distance between psychologists and people who need it.

During my job as a psychologist-consultant, I noted that half of my clients have/had thoughts about death in difficult periods of their lives, third of whom attempted to commit suicide. Most of these attempts to commit suicide have happened in youth (14-28). Suicide is a very sensitive topic and demands a very careful approach. So that’s why I concentrated on people who have thoughts about death. Often such people have low self-esteem or haven't parent's support. They do not know how to cope with hard life circumstances. Even one session with a psychologist or coacher can help them to change their attitude and find a solution to an issue. But in order to come to a psychologist, they must first try it for free and evaluate.

My audience – Young people from 18 to 35, who need psychological assistance, but do not realize it due to some circumstances. I should say when I lost my father at 18 years old, I never thought about going to a psychologist. This is all because of misunderstandings. Recently I lost my Mom, now I know how to cope with this issue. We would like every person can get psychological assistance if he need it. 

I created a chatbot on Manychat and linked it with Facebook. How does it work?

1. Go to the page ИнСайт (https://www.facebook.com/insight.kg/)  or through link https://m.me/insight.kg    

2. After clicking Message user gets a message where he can choose one of three languages (Kyrgyz, Russian, English). 

3. From this moment users get messages every day at the same time. Messages contain questions. Questions are built and connected logically. Now we testing one topic - My Strengths. If a user answers these questions every day he can understand his issues better. Even he does not answer, questions will encourage him to change his attitude. Also, we can send videos, pictures, links through this chatbot.

This chatbot - an easy and free way of getting psychological assistance.

Why I choose questions? All we know that questions make a person think. Also, I consider that not all users can share with their answers because chatbot linked to Facebook. We can create an app, only if we get good results. 

Now we testing 30-day course "My Strengths", but we can create different topics and users can subscribe to these streams. Other topics - Self-Esteem, Self-Concept, Emotions and Health, Stress-Management, Conflict, Goals-setting.

How this app can solve the problem of suicide commits?

I have a method that can bring out a person with thoughts about death. I tested it on my clients. One-third of such people try to commit suicide. This method consists of 3 projective questions. A person should choose one of 6 answers. Choosing three answers can show us that a person has suicidal thoughts or he could try to commit suicide. Now we are making research on 100 people. If we get reliable results, it becomes possible to use it in the chatbot.

We are going to send these questions among others and if a person chooses definite answers, we will try to connect with him and provide in-person assistance. Sure with his agreement. We respect the personal life and information of users, so the only user can decide - leave comments, answer questions or not. 

Thus, the chatbot solves two problems: it provides daily psychological support and allows us to study a narrow and acute topic through surveys or tests. At this stage, we are interested in solving the problem of people who have thoughts of death, because one third of them are at risk of committing suicide attempts.  

The services of psychological counseling are not affordable and accessible, especially in Kyrgyzstan. I think such a situation is in other underdeveloped countries: misunderstanding of the work of a psychologist, lack of specialists in regions, high cost of services, disbelief that psychological assistance can help them.

I studied mobile apps in the field of mental health and the biggest difference of our app from others is that it does not focus on the problem, does not highlight any particular problem, but positions itself as an app for entertainment or simply as supporting. Because people are not inclined to recognize the problems of a psychological plane. Also, people will not share or use the application if it is focused on a specific problem, because it means stigma. At least in our country, there are still various stereotypes about psychological assistance, especially in the regions. It also enhances psychological literacy, which is the mission of our organization.

At the same time, the application has a function to do polls and thus direct a person to what he needs. I think with this application we can study and conduct researches. One of these is the study of quick methods for identifying people prone to suicidal thoughts and provide them targeted assistance. The important thing is that most apps works on AI like in Woebot or they provide subscription for fee. Our app build questions in a way as a person get individual session. I know after questions they surely want an individual coinseling.

InSight chatbot created on Manychat platform. 

Why did we stop at this option?

It is free for up to 500 subscribers, after this figure - the cost of the application per month is 15 dollars. My friends-programmers said that the creation and promotion of a mobile application requires a lot of money, so they advised testing the idea on social networks. Only after I receive confirmation that this form of work is interesting for users I will decide on creating an application.

Studying applications, I stumbled upon a Woebot - chatbot application, integrated with Facebook and it can also be downloaded in Apple Store or Playmarket. I started learning chatbots and found the Manychat system. It fits my idea perfectly.

The free version allows testing only two sequences.

The sequence allows to build a sequence of messages, determine the date, the interval of messages. We can send users text messages, pictures, videos, attach links, do polls. Every day, a user receives only 1 or 2 questions. We decided not to load users with a lot of information. But the question makes them think. 

Since we are testing the free version, we have created only two sequences in two languages: Kyrgyz and Russian. This was done to allow entry to neighbor countries. As soon as we launch the paid version, we will have sequences in English and possibly other languages.

The theme of the sequence is "My Strengths". The paid version also allows us to create sequences on various topics.

There are many financed projects in ecology, urbanism and little for the mental health.

Why? I don't know. However, the increase in depression and suicide suggests that we are forgetting about ordinary urban residents. 

Psychological well-being affects all other indicators: monitoring health, eating well, planning births, not being subject to social stereotypes, to stop being just a consumer. Meanwhile, I constantly hear how people want to get more accessible psychological help.

At the same time, psychological aid cannot be cheap, in our country they spend a lot of money on education and supervision. Now there are multidisciplinary teams in hospitals. People are not yet accustomed to going to them. We plan to offer four types of assistance within the framework of the application: 1. state hospitals (phone numbers, addresses) 2. online courses within the app at affordable price 3. subscribing to our application (not more than $1 per month) 4. individual consultations (for a fee) Everybody can choose their way.

I tried to apply the Theory of Change to my project

Activities     Spreading and promoting chatbot among friends, youth organizations, communities, facebook  

Outputs        People began to think about themselves and their issues 

Short-term outcomes    They feel frustrated a little bit because questions can cause even more questions, somebodies feel better and want more deep questions  

Mid-term Users feel confused, they want individual counseling or stay indifferent 

Long-term  They will share with an app with friends, began to trust psychologists and go to them in critical situations

How many people are you currently serving with your solution? 

We started testing the chatbot in June 2019. In July I stopped the testing because I should decide different questions with app. We created a web-site (on a free platform) in July. We starting promoting through friends and clients on July 21. Now we have about 50 followers. I think it is possible to attract about 100 subscribers in 2-5 days, if work hard. 
The next step - working on attracting clients and creating a referral system for them. If they invite friends, they can get some services additionally.

How many will you be serving in one year?

About  50000 general users (followers) 

How about in five years?

1000000 users

THIS and NEXT year

1. Promote an app and involve more than 50000 followers in three countries

2. Make a research in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia on method of bringing out persons with thoughts about death (or suicidal). This research can help to differentiate our audience

3. Create a mobile app, if we get reliable results

4. Create a list of psychologists who will provide an individual consultations

5 years

1. To be the best attractive psy-support app in in the world and service of providing psychological assistance

1. People with low income and poor less often Facebook, so that's way it will be hard to achieve them. However I saw last statistics and the number of users of Facebook are growing. There are 500000 people who use Facebook in Kyrgyzstan

2. Psychological support is a very sensitive thing, it has own issues such as trust, confidentiality, unpredictability of human's behavior

3. Social stereotypes about psychological support 

4. The objective to be attractive app and stay focused on psychological issues

1. We will create own app, which will be downloaded separately, but stay linked with Facebook

2. Cooperation and involving of experienced specialists

3. Work out a whole PR program about it

4. 

I am working on the project myself because I couldn't pay someone for the work. I spent 30% of my time studying the topic. Last year, a group of programmer students created a website free of charge where users could take an online course. But we had to give it up for some reason. Then I found a chatbot system and adapted it myself to my idea. 
Now I cooperate with colleague from public hospital in making research.
I also plan to recruit the team gradually. 

 I am a practicing psychologist with 5 years of experience. Until 2018, I lived in the south of our country. I worked with children and teenagers. In 2015, I opened my studio, where I conducted psychological counseling and training. At the same time, I was attracted as a psychologist to projects for working with vulnerable people.
In 2016-2017, the idea to create an online psychological course that is affordable for teenagers came to my mind. But in the process, I decided to concentrate on young people from 18 to 35. If teenagers and people of mature age want to use our services, we are not opposed.
In 2018, we created a website, but it turned out to be a little inconvenient. And then I decided to create a mobile app. Before investing money, I have to test the idea of whether this application is needed or not.
In 2019, I found a way to test an idea using a chatbot.
In 2016-2017, I took the Introduction Course on psychoanalysis and it influenced me greatly in terms of how to work with clients. Also in 2017-2019, I completed a comprehensive rehabilitation program CARe Europe. This program is aimed at working with the human environment and focuses on strengths (transformation of vulnerable sides into strengths). 
Now I am planning to assemble a team. I have many like-minded people, but it is difficult for me to seriously involve someone to work without paying for their time.

There are some types of partnership which we can use, but it's possible only after testing the chatbot. 

We are currently conducting a study of our methodology to identify people with suicidal thoughts in collaboration with a psychiatrist from a local university, Liliya Panteleeva. Also we think about directing our subscribers to local hospitals.

As I mentioned, I finished the CARe program. This program has wonderful tools and also built in question-answer system. In May I was in Netherlands on the training and summit. I asked about using CARe tools in my app. They agreed. Now we are thinking about creating an option in app - CARe coach. This stream will build from CARe tools and has their logo. People can use it for free. It is a Business to Business partnership. 

InSight Social Business Model Canvas

Low income client as Market model/Fee-for-service Model

Now I have three hypothesis about how to develop chatbot. Each hypothesis should be tested.

1. The basic part of an app will be free for everyone, we will add additional services(courses, topics) for payment.

2. First month is free every time, next steps will be accessible by subscription (not more than 1$ per month). In this case we need many followers. That's way we are thinking about spreading an app to other countries.

Participating in this accelerator is very helpful in understanding the idea better. Even when I filled out this application form, I read a lot of interesting things (links  the questions) and learned. I'm starting to understand better where I am and where I'm going. Besides, I have read so many similar solutions to my project. I like the fact that the project is international and reading the solutions, I can understand the problems of different countries and compare.

Of course, I will be happy to receive mentoring support, questions that will help improve the idea. I would like to reach the final and expand my horizons.

Experts assistance (how to develop online psychologucal support)

The list of partners in process of creating.

City dwellers are more vulnerable than villagers. This is a high population density, air pollution, high housing prices, few trees and greenery, lots of cars and other problems.

A city dweller is more stressed. Paying attention to various problems, we often forget about ordinary people, who are more numerous and they make up the statistics where every 4 or 5 people suffer from depression or try to commit suicide.

Local authorities and international organizations solve the issue directly. And my decision to do it indirectly, through psychology, awareness. It is necessary to change the psychology of people. I hope that this application will be psychologically entertaining and will not alienate people, on the contrary will attract more subscribers and in the future will become a tool for big social changes. Recently, one head of a public foundation said that it would be nice to have a tool that questions people about their physical, mental state. I smiled. I would like our application to be such. I did not declare it loudly because it was under development. Until now, there is no large and widespread worldwide application for mental health. Often social networks act as substitutes. Moreover, it is now the peak when creative people around the world are trying to solve mental health problems, but solutions are not always successful. We do not have to wait for a client to come to us to solve a problem. We ourselves must identify them and make them come to us at will.

My colleagues tried to create an application that would help women from violence against them, but it seems it did not work. In my daily work I advise women and I must admit that the topic of violence is very relevant for our country. But it is also difficult for women to change their behavior. It requires long work with them. I think the application could be effective if you create a separate course for them and promote through the application. All the same, 90% of my subscribers are women. It is like additional support in favor of what is already being done in our country for women.