Why we commissioned Shout 85258
Kent's a big place and when you combine it with Medway we've got 1.8 million people.
You've got such a range and diverse range of of need mental health and well-being need from a crisis point all the way down to kind of general anxiety and general concerns about everyday life I suppose.
So we wanted something that was appropriate for anyone any age whatever the level of need and that they were particularly going through.
How does a text service provide unique support?
There are a number of things about Shout that we really like and they're distinct
to other services - the 24-hour nature of it is brilliant and when lots of other services are closed we know that there's always an option for people to access support for whatever reason.
The text-based nature of it is fantastic because we know that appeals to a younger audience we know that also appeals to people who might not be comfortable in having detailed conversations on the phone whether that's because they're not comfortable in themselves, or actually it might be that their situation in the household means that it might be potentially even dangerous to have those kind of conversations out loud.
And because it's got that clinical oversight in every conversation which is really important to us, it enables us to promote it with confidence to a range of different audiences.
How have you used the data insights provided?
The data that Shout have supplied really highlighted that actually the LGBTQ+ community were quite high users but when we saw there was a high take-up - certainly bigger than most of our other services that we provide - we were able to go okay this is a service that obviously resonates, there's obviously a demand here, so let's see how we can shape it even further and promote it even further.
But having that level of detail of data helps us shape how we target it at different groups and the different populations within the county.
How has Shout 85258 enabled you to reach groups other services haven’t?
Shout’s been really good because it enables us to market and promote its services to group different groups in different ways.
It’s also been targeted specifically at children and young people so we've co-designed some branding and marketing materials which have allowed us to make it more appealing to that group that's not something we've been able to do before, we've not had a 24-hour service accessible to children and young people.
For groups such as the LGBTQ+ community we've been able to target the marketing and it's been had really high take up with that group so it's broadened our broaden our scope and menu of support for a number of different groups.