Kognito and Togetherall Partner to Extend their Support of Campus Mental Health
Kognito, a leading health simulation company offering skill-building simulations that promote safe and healthy campuses, has partnered with Togetherall, a 24/7 online peer-to-peer mental health community.
Through this new partnership, Togetherall and Kognito will help campuses expand their mental health services to students—particularly remote options, which have become increasingly important during the pandemic. Combining Kognito’s practice-based learning experiences with Togetherall’s online community will help colleges build a stronger peer-to-peer support system in their efforts to enhance the safety and wellbeing of their campus community.
Togetherall is an online peer-to-peer mental health community where students can anonymously seek and provide support 24/7. It is moderated by registered practitioners who keep members safe and facilitate the process. Togetherall provides service to more than 200 post-secondary institutions serving 1.6 million students worldwide, with thousands of new members joining each month.
Kognito offers a suite of evidence-based virtual human simulations for both students and faculty, used by over 700 campuses to address critical issues including mental health, suicide prevention, and sexual misconduct prevention. A key component of its student-focused online simulations is allowing students to practice conversations with peers. Students learn how to identify and talk to friends in distress in an experiential private practice environment with virtual humans, building the skills and confidence to have these conversations in real life.
This partnership comes at a time when colleges around the country are responding to the growing mental health needs of students—almost 75% of college students say their mental health has worsened during the pandemic. Engaging students to support each other is one important strategy to foster a more positive campus climate. Kognito’s solutions go beyond awareness to help grow student skills, while Togetherall provides students with a place to use those skills and support one another.
“Partnering with Togetherall will allow Kognito to expand how we support the hundreds of schools that already utilize our comprehensive mental health and resilience skill-building simulation products,” says Ron Goldman, Co-Founder and Chief Simulation Strategist at Kognito. “As more schools adopt a stepped care model, they can continue to look to Kognito as part of a comprehensive solution to improve student mental health and wellness.”
Offering a spectrum of mental health support resources aligned with a stepped care model is becoming more common for campuses. But with the shift to remote learning, the need to think outside the “one-on-one counseling” box has grown even more. As campuses seek solutions to address their students’ mental health needs, Togetherall and Kognito work in concert to help fulfill a need at a critical time.
“Students need mental health support perhaps now more than ever, which can be a challenge during this pandemic when campus services are often limited due to safety concerns,” says Matthew McEvoy, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Togetherall in North America. “We’re excited to partner with Kognito to provide a more comprehensive solution to higher education institutions and help them give more support avenues to their student community.”
About Togetherall:
Established in 2007 as Big White Wall, Togetherall is a leading online mental health service that provides millions of people throughout the UK, New Zealand, Canada and the US access to community and professional support, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The service is registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and is clinically proven to help those who are struggling with stress, isolation, anxiety, depression and other common mental health issues. Togetherall has supported over 220,000 members with their mental health since launch in partnership with clients in the corporate, education, health and charity sectors, and all serving military personnel and veterans in the UK. Learn more at www.togetherall.com.
About Kognito
Founded in 2003, Kognito is a leader in designing immersive practice experiences that develop and assess users’ competencies in transforming challenging health conversations into opportunities to drive meaningful and sustainable changes in attitudes, self-efficacy, and behavior. Kognito’s award-winning online and mobile experiences use emotionally responsive virtual humans to simulate real-life conversations within a risk-free and adaptive environment that provides personalized feedback and in-depth analytics. Kognito uses a science-driven, research-proven approach and currently has more than 450 clients in education, government, and healthcare settings. Learn more and access demos at www.kognito.com.