eCampusOntario has partnered with Keel Mind, (formerly known as Get-A-Head), to make mental health support services more accessible for Ontario postsecondary students. This collaboration will provide publicly-assisted postsecondary institutions with a free-to-use mental health resource that supports supervision and training as well as an easy-to-use digital resource for students to receive professional care at their institution.
Beginning spring 2024, eCampusOntario will conduct research and consultation with faculty and students, from its member institutions, to identify key mental health needs and challenges. Keel Mind will leverage this comprehensive research to inform a new mental health portal that will provide direct support for students.
Keel Mind is an industry-leading mental health training, supervision, and service delivery platform, incorporating Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence for care providers to be more data driven in their delivery of care, improving patient access, diagnosis, and positive outcomes. The platform is available for free to member institutions through the eCampusOntario EdTech Sandbox. In March 2022, the Ministry of Colleges and Universities announced that the platform would be available to all postsecondary institutions in Ontario. Since that time, Keel Mind has been adopted by users in 35 of Ontario's 46 publicly funded postsecondary institutions, provided over 110,000 therapy sessions to students with 83% of survey respondents stating that the services offered by the platform improved their mental wellbeing.
"It is essential to support our students and faculty with access to high-quality mental health resources," said Robert Luke, CEO, eCampusOntario. "We are excited to provide our member institutions with the innovative tools and resources they need to help students receive timely mental health care and connect with health practitioners at their institution in a safe, secure, and accessible virtual environment. Resources like Keel Mind are critical components of the digital wraparound supports necessary for learners to succeed." "By partnering with eCampusOntario, we're thrilled to engage directly with students and faculty across Ontario institutions," explains Ahad Bandealy, the platform's founder and Chief Digital Officer at Keel. "Keel Mind was crafted to support aspiring mental health professionals, offering deeper insights into their sessions, simplifying the supervision process, and offering a secure, user-friendly platform for students to conveniently access virtual care from wherever they are."
"Students often face a variety of mental health challenges throughout the semester and, even though they are on campus as individuals, these difficulties have implications for their families," says Dr. Dillon Browne, Canada Research Chair in Child and Family Clinical Psychology at the University of Waterloo. "The Keel Mind platform has enabled us to provide direct access to clinical services for students and families in 2022-2023, and we are also evaluating how these services benefited their well-being. It's great to see the conversation shifting to the adoption of technological solutions as mental health supports become more accessible for Ontarians."
eCampusOntario will begin consultations in support of its partnership with Keel Mind with Ontario postsecondary institutions and learners in 2024.
