Where Impact Meets Innovation: Interview with Kids Help Phone’s Innovation Director

Written by: Carmen Yeung

Carmen and Alia discuss Kids Help Phone’s innovative strides in the youth mental health space and what social entrepreneurs should be doing moving forward. 

Alia Lachana is the Senior Director of Innovation & Insights at Kids Help Phone (KHP), Canada’s free, 24/7 e-mental health service for youth.

First things first, what is your role in the Innovation team at KHP?

I’m a part of the Innovation and Data function at Kids Help Phone. It’s relatively new, running for about three to four years now, and our team has a combination of both product managers and innovation analysts. Essentially, Kids Help Phone sits on the largest dataset of youth mental health in Canada. The idea for the Innovation team came about from the organization trying to figure out how to activate and use that dataset. What can we do with it? How can it be used to revolutionize and grow the products and services we offer to young people in Canada?

 Our team’s role is to look at the quantitative data and youth interactions with our products and services so that we can: 

(1) Make it easier for frontline staff to be able to provide products and services,

(2) Make it easier for young people to find, access, and receive customized therapeutic models, and

(3) Fundamentally, ensure that we are offering the right products and services. 

Can you tell me about how data has been specifically used to solve some of the problems you’ve mentioned?

Access is one of the main problems we’re working on right now. This looks like overcoming barriers to accessing mental health, such as being in a location with poor internet access or a household where you might not have your own phone or computer. Canada is a really geographically complex country with quite a dispersed populace. Depending on which area you live in, you may face certain challenges (e.g. more remote locations or commuting through a bridge or a tunnel).

One of the projects that we’ve been working on is looking at using our data set, in conjunction with our partnerships and mapping tools, to understand what services are available across the country and where service deserts or service hot spots might exist. From that, we can figure out how to create new partnerships and programs to fill those gaps and micro-target services. 

Keep in mind that our services are free, confidential, and anonymous, so we aren’t figuring out a new business model but instead how we can start strategically positioning services to increase awareness and access to young people. For example, if we find that in X province, a lot of people call in about specific concerns, and we know that services around that concern are limited, is there a way we can invest in partnerships or products that specifically target that province and concern?

“It’s very new, and we’re figuring it out. One of the great things about being in an Innovation team is that this process involves a lot of prototyping. That just means that we come up with quick tests where we can put something on the market, see if it works, pull it back, iterate, and continuously gather feedback through focus groups or surveys. We don’t have to have 100% of the project done before we gather feedback to figure out whether or not this will be a solution — instead, it can be a much more agile process.”

I’ve heard a little bit about KHP’s use of predictive analytics in their services - for example, in chat waitlists. Can you tell me more about that?
Yes, so Kids Help Phone runs three 1-to-1 services -- you can connect by text, phone and webchat. We’ve recently partnered with The Vector Institute, which specializes in AI tools, to develop our own human-centred, assistive AI model. This model will help with predictive issue tagging in phone calls (e.g. for concepts like bullying and depression), which can help with things like real-time ad hoc resource suggesting or creating tip sheets for counsellors that support that particular interaction. There’s an entire range of use cases around AI and AI modelling. We’re currently in the process of building our own natural language processing models and AI/ML models to accomplish the goals we previously discussed. 

You’ve discussed this process of analyzing data, testing, and implementation -- does your team work on all of this simultaneously?

Everything is happening all of the time. As we’re working through a product or a project, we’re constantly getting feedback on whether something else is working or not.

The way that I tell people about product design is that it is an exceedingly iterative cycle. You come up with an idea, you check it with some people to see if you’re on the right track, you create a low-weight type test/prototype, and then you check again. If you’re in the right spot, you can build a larger weight solution, and you continue to iterate as you go, make changes, and test again. Once something’s out in the world, you will continue to iterate and make changes until you decide that a product or service is at the end of its life and ready to decommission. 

One of the things I highlight when I teach design is to always test and check your ideas by talking to people. It's also not just about testing; it's about thinking about your core design principles.

Ours are based on an equity-based participatory design process. We focus on designing for those with the least access first, ensuring inclusivity. By doing so, we create products that cater to everyone, not just a specific group. So if you design for those that are least served first, you will ensure that you are designing for everybody. 

Would you say that has changed throughout the years at KHP? Has an equity-first design process existed since its foundation?

What I’ve seen in the last two years is a commitment to creating products and services that are bias-aware and are based on an equity-based participatory design process. I can see an active movement in the last two years, and it’s been less of an uphill battle at KHP to have people understand these principles than at any other place that I’ve worked.

I’ve worked at a lot of places - at non-profits, for-profits, big corporations, startups, social enterprises, globally - and it’s a very different organization at Kids Help Phone.

I’ve definitely noticed that the way KHP operates is very unique. Other than an emphasis on equitable services, how else would you say KHP differs from past workplaces?

I think the interesting thing about KHP, specifically as an NGO, is that there’s an entire range of things in the innovation space that we’re looking at doing. When we present it to the outside world, people are super surprised that an NGO is tackling these types of problems. When we tell the public that we’re trying to integrate AI in a socially responsible way that supports counselling staff and young people - people are like: “What do you mean, and how are you doing that?” You know, we’re looking at building open-source technologies and frameworks for the mental health ecosystem and the greater community at large - and I think it’s a very interesting place to be.

We have a range of AI tools on the market that people are turning to, like ChatGPT. When we talk about moving into these spaces to help young people navigate them in a way that’s responsible and effective - those are the conversations that I find very different at KHP than other places I’ve been in. There’s this massive lens about: what does this mean for young people? For their mental health? And it’s not driven by a massive profit motive or the notion that because we’re an NGO, we can’t accomplish these things. Because it’s a little bit harder; we need to find support and create partnerships. But we’re not going to back away from it - even though traditionally, this isn’t a challenge that’s picked up in an organization like this. 

Other than some of the barriers we’ve discussed, why do you think that other NGOs are not as focused on using technology or innovative frameworks to accelerate their impact? 

I think there are some, but they’re just fragmented. Some examples are The Cancer Society and The Trevor Project in the States, which released a chat model built with Google to triage phone calls. I think there are lots of NGOs that are doing super exciting things. We just don’t talk about them as much, and we don’t give them enough credit. The value of KHP as a national youth organization is that we have the voice and platform to bring attention to the concerns of young people and help be that connection between organizations that are working on these issues. 

“Also, I think there is an expectation or belief from some sectors that this level of rigour can’t exist in an NGO, which is quite frankly just not true. ”

So, I think it’s just a matter of us talking about it more. 

 That’s exactly what I’m trying to do here at QSIA - bring light to the amazing things that these NGOs are doing. When I was doing initial research on social innovation topics, the NGO space was definitely not the first to come up.

What are the key barriers or challenges that your team at KHP is currently facing when designing the initiatives we previously discussed?

The biggest challenge is that everything moves so quickly. The internet moves fast; technology moves fast; and young people move fast. So for us, it’s trying to keep up with the pace of change and getting solutions out that are clinically sound and useful. 

There’s also the challenge that we place on ourselves - we see the extent of the mental health space in Canada, and we want to fill those gaps and ensure everyone is getting their needs met. That is an incredible burden to put on a team and across an entire organization. My team is fantastic, and they come to work every day wanting to be able to make great things that help people. But it’s about how we can navigate that challenge sustainably. It’s about figuring out what we can and cannot solve, when we need partners, and how to keep up with the pace at which solutions are needed. 

Another challenge is this notion of social technology. Everybody focuses on the technology portion of things but forgets that people exist in the system. The technology is not the goal; the goal is what the use cases are for the technology and how they will support human-driven initiatives. Although AI/ML models are cool, what we need to focus on are the people.

Yes, especially for purpose-driven organizations, employee burnout is a huge problem. During the pandemic, we saw a lot of these organizations struggle to make sure that employees still want to come to work and don’t feel overburdened by the problems that need solving.

I know that you also mentioned the speed of technology, which I think is a challenge for everybody in the space. There can be times when you find yourself in this iterative process, but in the middle of product design, something new will come out, and your solution may not address the needs of your consumers anymore. Is that something you’ve experienced?

One of the conversations that I have with our team all the time is that there is no such thing as a 100% solution. I’m very much a 70% type of gal. Because of the fact that things move quickly, and you don’t know how people are going to use your products or services, you have to design and create things with the notion that you’re going to have to iterate and modify it. When you work in an innovation management space, you have to be ready for that level of risk. Your solution may or may not work for some groups, and that’s okay; you can make something else. Our team is constantly keeping that in mind. If you’re always trying to get to the perfect solution, you’ll never do anything. You have to be more accepting of trying solutions and having people not like them. You also have to be okay with experimentation and learning when you release new products and services, in order to make changes later so people can use them.

Definitely. I was in an innovation accelerator this summer, and wanting my prototypes and solutions to be perfect hindered the progress I made. What other advice would you give to social entrepreneurs like myself? 

Figure out why you’re doing what you’re doing. Are you genuinely trying to solve a problem? Are you a serial entrepreneur? Do you have a passion for climate change or mental health? Do you just love entrepreneurship and see an opportunity in the space?

The second is to lean into the skills that you have and the things that you enjoy doing. I have seen a number of entrepreneurs lean away from things that they are good at into the things that they’re terrible at - and spending time on activities that drain your energy is not a great place to be. You can always find other people who can help you do those things. 

The third is that nothing is done in a vacuum. Find your people. Find people that you can talk to about your projects, who can mentor you, who can give you advice. None of these problems can be solved by yourself - they’re massive! One of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs is social isolation, which is not optimal. One person isn’t going to solve climate change or save the ocean. You may have a portion of the solution but not the entire thing. So find a community of people, mentors, and peers that you can talk to. 

Also, if you’re going to move into the social impact space, have a life outside of the problem that you are trying to solve. Go eat, dance, play music, draw, play a sport. Every moment you step away, it gives your brain time to think and work stuff out. It will make you a better problem solver if you can have moments away from the problem.

Lastly, be okay with trying things and having them work or not work. Be okay with letting people see incomplete projects or thoughts as a drawing or a scratch on a piece of paper - because that is where a lot of great feedback comes from.

“None of these are perfect problem spaces that you’re working in, and you are not a perfect person. Get as much feedback as you can, as often as you can. ”

Thank you so much for sharing, Alia!

*Opinions from this interview are solely from the individual and not on behalf of the company*