Clinical Trial of Group counselling and support online using Kids Helpline Circles on a secure social network.

Intervention brief name: Group Solution Focused Counselling via Social Network + One-on-one solution focused counselling. Control: One-on-one solution focused counselling. For each intervention: Informational materials are provided to clients that relate to their mental health concern (e.g. depression, anxiety and stress). This is the psycho-education stage upon entrance to the trial, that is provided in both one-on-one online counselling and in group counselling via the social network. Each week that a client voluntarily attends the intervention they will be provided with more support materials from written information, short YouTube videos on how to cope with mental illness and support counselling provided by a dedicated professionally trained counsellor at Kids Helpline. In all cases, only the professionally trained and accredited counsellor at Kids Helpline will provide the intervention counselling and support material. Each professional counsellor has a minimum of 2 years experience with delivering solution focused counselling by telephone or online. For this clinical trial, the mode of delivery will be a combination of online counselling (social network group counselling) and telephone or email support (one-on-one solution focused counselling. The number of times the intervention will be delivered is determined by the volunteer participant, but they can access the intervention for up to 4 years and may do so at their own frequency in any 24 hour period. The location where the intervention occurs is only online or via telephone or email. For all trials the intervention is the same in the experimental condition - the provision of solution focused group counselling via social network, in addition to volunteer participants also attending individual, one-on-one solution focused counselling provided by telephone and/or email. Intervention adherence is completely determined by the volunteer participant as it is important they feel the service being provided is not enforced and is a choice for them to participate with. Counselling Schedule: Counselling sessions in both conditions are available at 24/7 and are not scheduled. Kids Helpline is a 24/7 online and telephone counselling service, Given this, scheduled appointments are not necessary or required for the intervention. Activities in Group Counselling: Each group counselling session follows the format of solution focused counselling. This form of counselling asks the group to set a topic/goal to discuss as a group and then problem solve the issues raised in the session (e.g. how to overcome self-esteem issues, bullying, loneliness, mood swings, aggression, etc). During the session the counsellor directs the group to helpful information (e.g. mental health self-help approaches, self-care, local, regional and urban services for mental health) and asks them to share their thoughts on what they learn about these resources and rate how helpful they maybe in tackling their individual problems. The session/discussion usually closes with 'homework' for the group, asking group members to bring more information they find that helps them cope with their concerns to the next group session, regardless of what time or day they may choose to return. This allows subjects to interact and share their experiences of coping and problem based solution focused skills to the next group session they attend. The Social Networks being used for group counselling are purpose built, privately owned and operated, social network platforms called ELGG. https://elgg.org/ and HumHub https://www.humhub.org/en (the later being introduced to the trial in April 2018). These two social networks will be used to compare online group counselling environments and user experiences, across both PC, tablet and smart phone platforms. These custom built, secure and private social network platforms can only be accessed by Kids Helpline clients invited to join. Before joining their details are recorded for counsellors to monitor client/subject engagement and adherence to the group counselling environment. Monitoring of adherence is done through a number of means: i) log on frequency ii) downloaded content of mental health resources iii) comment posting and engagement one-on-one or in group with specific Kids Helpline counselors who monitor client/subject progress in the online environment. 'Sessions' are defined as approximately 5 min counsellor initiated discussions. Approximately, every 5 min the counsellor overseeing a group online will initiate solution focused topics to stimulate conversation and interest in the groups. These topics typically relate to what has been discussed in the previous 5 min. If the group is motivated in discussion, the counsellor will only watch the discussion and add comment if necessary. If the conversation is requires further in-put the counsellor will do so by promoting a positive and helpful prompting of discussion. This allows the group to remain free flowing for a period of time and also allows free access 24/7 to the group being monitored by the counsellor. A session can only be conducted with more than 2 participants present, but if only one participant is present the counsellor will engage them in one-on-one counselling until other participants join the discussion.