The YAppEE app.
Camera IconThe YAppEE app. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

YAppEE: Osborne Park health service helping launch youth mental health app

Laura PondStirling Times

AN Osborne Park health service is launching an app to support young people with mental health issues.

Black Swan Health partnered with Black Dog Institute and Advanced Personnel Management to develop free mental health tool Youth Application Empowering Employment, known as YAppEE.

The app aims to support young people whose mental ill-health puts them at risk of entering long-term unemployment by enabling them to complete daily check-ins with a mental health professional who can provide a timely response.

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Black Swan Health has also established a national call centre providing regular phone mentoring and support.

Chief executive Terina Grace said work gave a sense of contribution, belonging, personal growth and direction, which contributed to being mentally healthy, but young people with mental illness often had barriers to employment.

“The data shows that young people with mental illness have five times the unemployment rate of others,” she said.

“On average, it takes twice as long to secure a job in the first place, and then they are three times less likely to remain in employment, and are consequently more likely to be unemployed in the long-term.”

She said that was due to complex barriers such as the cyclical nature of mental illness and unidentified stressors.

“Current employment support programs cannot always deliver the level of monitoring and fluctuating support needed in the workplace,” she said.

“With the application of technology, this innovative program will enable non-invasive, real-time, daily monitoring and critical support from youth mental health specialists.”

YAppEE was commissioned as part of the federal Department of Employment’s Empowering YOUth Initiative.

It launches tomorrow and can be accessed by referral from Headspace in Osborne Park and Advanced Personnel Management.

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