Transcript

Digital Innovation: How Technology Supports Youth | Jane Burns | TEDxUNSW

now I have a glass of water I'm not going to throw this on you at all I'm going to put it here and the reason I have a glass of water is because I have a cold and we all know what you do when you have a cold you buy some cold and flu tablets you eat some chicken noodle soup and you have a cup of tea with lemon and honey in it so we all know that we all know that that's what we do when we have a cold Christmas last year I discovered a lump in my breast I immediately went to the doctor the doctor immediately got me in to see a specialist I had a mamogram and I had an ultrasound and I got a text message and an email to let me know that it was okay so when something like that happens we all know exactly what we should be doing when something happens to our brain or our mind when we start to feel anxious when we start to feel sad down miserable when we get angry when our body image doesn't quite um hook up to what we think it should be we don't immediately know what to do or where to get support or how to get that help or when we should actually get that help and in fact the re research shows us that the more ill you become the less likely it is that you're actually going to get support so when you think about the most valuable asset that we have which which is our mind and our brain our curiosity the things that make us tick the things that make us the people that we are the people who can love if you could be curious when it comes to our mind and our brain we still have not nailed the science that will allow people to manage their well-being and get the right Care at the right time when they need it and so my talk today is about how I think Technologies in the 21st century may actually be able to provide a solution to some of the challenges of well-being Health seeking and highest quality clinical care but first of all a little about me I'm mom I've also dedicated 20 years of my life to Suicide Prevention but most importantly I am Mom to three beautiful little children and every mom loves their child and and I'm not going to bore you with a million stories of children but what I do want to tell you is Harry is now five six Holly is now seven and Angus is nine and when they were little I used to say to Harry Harry what do you want to be when you grow up and Harry would say Mommy I want to be a clown and I'd say adopt the clown well mommy just a clown okay what about a lawyer clown no mommy just a clown not a magician but a clown and then I'd say to Holly Holly darling what do you want to be when you grow up well Mommy I just want to be a fairy oh my God a drct fairy just a fairy clearly they take after their father so and that is a good thing that is a good thing let me kid you not because he has the genetics that mean that he is a very sunshiny happy person he can pick himself up from adversity dust himself off and get on with life now unfortunately that is not true for all of us and some of the challenges in understanding mental illness is that it's complex it's a complex mix between your brain your environment your genetics what's happening in your family life what's happening at school at work all of the stresses that might come from living in the world in which we live so there is a huge dir of knowledge about what actually might cause depression anxiety drug alcohol Eating Disorders psychosis there's also a lack of understanding because as people often say well why can't you just pick yourself up and get on with it it's all in your mind and I go yeah it is all in your mind it's a part of your brain understanding and making sense of the complexities of life then there is Angus my 9-year-old and Angus was born with Down Syndrome diagnosed with autism and is nonverbal he uses an iPad to communicate and so I think for the first time in history we will have an opportunity to use Technologies to ensure that those who are most vulnerable people living with a disability people who are non-verbal people who are so disabled that they cannot leave their homes due to their anxiety or their depression we can use these Technologies to connect and to reach out I was asked a little while ago to go and chat to the monach university leadership and they said well explain to us what steps have you walked in how have you got to where you are and I said well I can tell you this my favorite cartoonist is luning and one of the things that you can never control is the messiness and the complexity of life it is messy it is complex It Is What Makes Us human beings otherwise we would all be robots walking down the street not doing anything particularly interesting life is messy we have personalities we love we're scared we do all those things that make us the people that we are they also asked me and this is quite common if you follow social media the question what would you tell your 18-year-old self and what I would tell myself do not do not get a perm do not this out and do not share this on social media oh my God we T oh my God it's going out widely that is a perm from the 80s and I know I can see all of you there sitting wishing you had that hair I can see you all running out to your headdresses now saying give me a perm I want the perm so anyway that's enough about me when I started in suicide prevention back plus 20 years ago my first job as a young person just out a University was to create a study that looked at the cost of suicide there are a number of things wrong with this I wasn't an economist you cannot put a price on a number on the life lost to suicide and you can never underestimate the burden that it has on families on friends on the community on society and back then and it's terrible to say that Australia along with New Zealand had the highest youth suicide rate in the world and we have to ask ask ourselves as a society what is going on that our young people feel that their life is not worth living what is it that we've got wrong when we think of ourselves as The Lucky Country and our prime minister prime minister Malcolm Chell talks about the importance of your brain the thing in your head the thing that is the greatest mental capital for Australia the most valuable asset more valuable than mining more valuable than farming the most important asset so what is it that we could do differently to ensure that we don't continue to see this situation despite 20 years of work it is still the leading cause of death for young people age 15 to 24 so despite all of the stigma campaigns we have not shifted that statistic and an average year 12 classroom one young person will have attempted suicide it is a national tragedy and Lifeline call it a crisis and it is one in four young people will experience a mental health disorder that is this group in the room it is a lot of people and it not only affects how you interact in effectual quality of your relationships how well you do at school how well you do at work um how you actually manage and work through your life and despite all of our campaigns and all of our awareness raising and the fabulous work done by the Beyond Blues of the world and and my members 75% of young people 75% will not seek help think back to my original conversation I know what to do when I've got a cold I know what to do when I've got a lump in my breast young people do not know where to get support and help and care when they are going through a difficult tough time and this is not just feeling sad and miserable and down this is impacting on the quality of your life Your Capacity to engage in School in University in work in the community so that's the current situation so 5 years ago I thought to what do we do about this what we're doing is not working the research we're doing is great but it's not actually impacting and changing policy can we set up an organization that puts young people one of them is sitting here in front of me at the center of the research the development the practice and the policy and can we get young people involved in shaping that research so so that that research immediately has ramification implications for the practice of organizations like Lifeline like headp space and so we set up a brains trust a brains Trust of 80 amazing young people entrepreneurs people with a lived experience ranging age from 12 to 25 every single one of them has an amazing story to tell some have gone off to the UN to wh they are simply stunning entrepreneurial young people and we set them alongside our scientists people like Professor Ian hickey Professor Pat mcari Professor Helen Christensen brilliant researchers scientists but our single most valuable asset were our young people and what they were telling us we set them up as partners in research and practice and policy and we worked through an agile methodology which is anyone who's in technology will know this method if you design you design with the people in mind and you involve the people so that they actually shape the practice and you actually get a product that people want to use it's not rocket science but we B it into the work that we did and what we've developed I think is what is quite simply stunning and the Australian government have continued to invest in it it's called Synergy so as I've mentioned the current state is very confusing when you ask people what is available for them some will be able to name Beyond blue but if you have an eating disorder you don't want to end up at Beyond blue you want to end up at butterfly Foundation some people can name head space but there are a whole host of resources the intent and purpose of synergy was to bring them into a system that was seamless so the person no matter where they landed Got the Right Care at the right time it didn't matter if you came in and the idea being there is no wrong door you don't have to go to B you don't have to go to Lifeline you could be at school you could be at work you could be at University no wrong door so idea being that you could access it wherever you wanted on your iPad on your iPhone there's no Stigma attached to a device you could access it from your bedroom if you wanted to you could get the support you needed when you wanted it and in the way that suited you but we also wanted to make sure that we didn't set it up to say actually no professionals aren't important they are just as important but what we want to do is make sure that people think about how they can self-manage their Wellness manage their stress manage the things that are challenging but if they do need care support and help get into that care immediately and do it in a way that the Technologies facilitate it's a backend solution no one sees it's happening who uses an app I'd be surprised who doesn't use an app the idea being that we all use Technologies we have iPhones we have iPads we're on computers with the right balance we believe that we can use these Technologies for good not evil came up with a concept Happ essential young people came up with Concept how do you bring all of the apps together into one system so that data flows between those systems and that if you use an app that is about sleeping you can actually monitor your sleeping and understand what's making you not sleep you start with a wellness survey so it tailor it to your needs it gives you a well-being plan it then recommends apps to you and then the data starts to flow so behind the scenes Synergy is doing this for you the data is encrypted it's safely stored so you know that your data is safe it's based on well-being it's based on managing stresses it's about linking the system and it's about bringing the very best of breach the four entrepreneurs James Tuton and Jamie Martino James not is not a mental health professional he created Moonlight Cinema but he suddenly went I know there's smiling mind there's a way in which I can take mindfulness out to the masses it's a simple app that helps you manage stress music Escape who in this room does not like music who did not love those the band before music Escape simply takes your playlist looks at the Cadence of it gives it a rating of mood from Angry Rage Against the Machine to happy Walking on Sunshine and it allows you the person to to create a playlist based on I'm feeling bored do I want to feel excited or I'm feeling sad do I want to feel happy there's no Stigma attached to this and the data flows backwards and forwards between the system so that you can start to measure what is going on for you hello Sunday morning who's heard of this you people it is a social movement created by a young social entrepreneur Chris R Chris basically said we have a culture in a Australia which is about drinking is there a way that I can build a community not to tell people stop drinking but rather to say imagine if you woke up on Sunday morning you actually got active and went out and did something different sign up and be a part of the community take a break from alcohol and within months he had thousands of people as a part of the community it's about retraining your thinking about what keeps you well kick it brand new one young entrepreneur based out of AD age he's looking at how he can Le is up with Nic and bring it into the Synergy system so that people can start to understand how it all interrelates and links sleep well be well who gets enough sleep a few people well done to you CU I certainly don't so recharge was created by the GU of brain and mind center with reach out and basically it said how do you get young men engaged sleep and activity with the two things young men said to us was actually going to make a difference so the recharge out co-creative co-design basically is gamified there's a little snippet in it which to set off the alarm or to stop the alarm you actually have to get up and do star jumps really simple one of my researchers was on a plane international flight forgot to turn it off or actually I don't think you can turn it off went off she had to do our star jumps to get the thing turned off anyway the whole point of the story is there are literally hundred hundreds of apps out there for wellbeing hundreds of them that you can start to use to help you manage those stressful events those relationship breakups the things that are actually put you under pressure and put you at risk for mental health Biometrics the world is exploding with Biometrics we can now through the apis of synergy pull in this data so that you can start to use it to inform and trap your mood so that's the first section and I'm almost finished the second bit is what if it's not all Rosy and your stress does become out of control and you're not sleeping and you are drinking too much is there a way that the system can pick up early that you're not traveling well can flag it with you as a person in control actually it looks like you're not doing too well perhaps you need to go and speak to someone would you like to go and speak to someone and the person can choose because not always people are not always ready to seek support and care and if they choose they can choose to go on and do a much more clinically orientative survey which picks up where they're at in the stage of what might be the beginning of a mental illness but it might not be and so what we want to do is determine can we support and treat online and if we can keep people self-managing because that's about being empowered and being in control but if you are unwell and you do require support can we actually use them the Technologies with a professional to ensure that you're still in control but you're marrying up your data your information with the professional so that when you go in and you speak to them they can look at it and immediately say it looks like this is going on let's get you started on thinking about mindfulness or some music therapy or some walking and um activity because we know that that's going to be good for your mental health if those things don't work in real time we can measure that and we can change the treatment options com Behavior therapist someone was talking to me about it before it doesn't work for everyone and yet we continue to pursue it and persist with it in this world in this new world of synergy where you are in control of the person you own your own do we'll be able to measure whether the therapies are working whether the medications are working and we'll be able to tailor treatments to suit you thank you [Applause]