Kids Help Phone and Tech Matters join forces to further modernize child helplines globally

Kids Help Phone and Tech Matters join forces to innovate youth mental health services across Canada, and further modernize child helplines globally

TORONTO, Nov. 20 – Kids Help Phone (KHP), Canada’s only 24/7, free, multilingual e-mental health service for youth, is partnering with Silicon Valley-based nonprofit Tech Matters to revolutionize services for young people in Canada and around the world. This collaboration centers around KHP’s leading investment in Aselo®, a foundational technology platform that meets the unique needs of helpline counsellors providing digital mental health services. This investment in purpose-built technology and the improvements in the Aselo platform that have been co-designed with KHP’s frontline staff. Each feature that is built into Aselo originates from feedback provided directly by counsellors and supervisors, ensuring that the technology continues to adapt to the needs of the helpline. These advancements have also been rolled out to child helplines around the world.

KHP and the Canadian funders behind this transformational work are playing a leading role in changing the future of the global helpline community. With KHP’s investment, Aselo gives child helplines around the world state-of-the-art technology tools to strengthen the work of their frontline staff and build reliable communication channels between the helplines and young people seeking help. This initiative aims to modernize child helplines worldwide, with the goal of doubling the number of young people who can be served.

“As an innovative, data driven, tech leader in youth mental health in Canada and globally, KHP is committed to building and scaling meaningful solutions for youth mental health,” said KHP President & CEO Katherine Hay. “Our partnership with Tech Matters has been focused on addressing the urgent needs of young people reaching out to KHP in Canada while supporting helplines globally. Aselo is transforming not only our ability to respond to young people, it’s also elevating the voice of frontline staff, enabling them to express and shape what they need to increase their effectiveness. Aselo – and the partnership with Tech Matters – is a game changer. It’s also gratifying that the advancements we’ve co-created can benefit helplines the world over.”

By building technology exclusively for crisis response helplines, Tech Matters ensures counsellors play a significant role in shaping the platform’s features and functionality. A key benefit of using Aselo is that it streamlines the workflow of Kids Help Phone’s frontline staff, giving counsellors one unified platform to engage in voice calls, conduct web chat counseling, capture counselling data records, and search for relevant resources to share with service users. By providing a more efficient and reliable platform for counselling, frontline staff can better focus their efforts on the work that can’t be replaced by technology providing effective and empathetic support to those in crisis.

“Child helplines have unique requirements that generic call center software cannot address effectively,” said Jim Fruchterman, the founder and CEO of Tech Matters. “The common needs of helplines are clear, such as making the best use of trained counsellors, their most important asset, while prioritizing the safety and privacy of young people and their data. As nonprofit technologists, our mission is served by providing tools to expert nonprofits such as Kids Help Phone, who are directly serving those people most in need of help.”

As part of their work together, KHP and Tech Matters have co-developed features for Aselo including the development of multi-language webchat support, creation of an integrated resource database that makes it easier for counsellors to search and refer helpline users to community resources, and the ability to transfer helpline users to external resources, such as emergency services.

Aselo was first adopted by the child helpline in Zambia in 2021. Today the platform is being used by child helplines in more than 15 countries and on every inhabited continent.

FAST FACTS FROM KHP and TECH MATTERS

• Kids Help Phone has supported young people over 21 million times since the onset of COVID-19 — this number increases every day.
• On average 75 percent of young people share something with Kids Help Phone they’ve never shared with anyone else.
• On average 88 percent of young people feel better after connecting with Kids Help Phone.
• Tech Matters is currently working with child helplines in Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ethiopia, Hungary, India, Jamaica, Malawi, Malta, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

ADDITIONAL QUOTES

“Canada is failing youth. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among our young people. Our goal is to put youth at the centre, and transform the delivery and accessibility of digital mental health solutions. Through our partnership with Tech Matters, Kids Help Phone is empowering Canada’s young people to get immediate, equitable, and effective support for any mental health challenge they face,” said Katherine Hay, President & CEO, Kids Help Phone.

“Our goal at Tech Matters is to bring great technology to meet the urgent needs of nonprofits. Demands on the crisis helpline movement are rapidly increasing, with young people in particular facing an enormous range of challenges. KHP has shared critical insights and innovations which they are happy to generously share to help modernize child helplines, making them more responsive to children in crisis around the world,” said Jim Fruchterman, founder & CEO of Tech Matters.