Tackling Health Inequalities in Greenwich
Tellmi was granted funding by the Small Business Research Initiative Healthcare to conduct a project aimed at tackling health inequalities in Greenwich. The Tellmi Service was made available to young people across the borough through partnerships and outreach projects. In total, the project covered an area with roughly 42,900 young people.
Over the course of a year, from March 2022 to March 2023, the project's objective was to reach and support more than 2,000 young people living in a region with significant health disparities.
The successful pilot saw greater participation than anticipated, with a significant number of children and young people reached through various engagement activities.
Our partners
What we did
Tellmi collaborated with organisations such as Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, Local GPs, youth groups, and job centres in the borough to offer resources and education about the services accessible to its inhabitants.
Tellmi worked with seven nearby schools to host workshops aimed at enhancing students' resilience and comprehension of peer support.
The Tellmi Directory was updated to make it easier to find local information, support and resources. Throughout the project, data insights were provided to the NHS and partner schools to increase understanding of youth mental health issues.
“I am honestly amazed at the volume of support that Tellmi has provided for our entire school community. Tellmi has visited the school a number of times and delivered top-class workshops that are engaging and effective from years 7 right through to 13. Tellmi’s resources are accessible and the app has been popular with our students. Students are beginning to speak more openly about their mental health.”
– Hannah Elliott, Senior Mental Health Lead, Woolwich Polytechnic Boys
Students helped to create a video to demonstrate how the app works and to establish trust and engagement.
Tellmi collaborated with advertising agency Dentsu Creative to develop a series of vibrant posters and billboards that were displayed across 20 locations in Greenwich, with a particular focus on bus stops, schools and youth clubs.
A Spotify advert was launched targeting listeners in Greenwich to help increase awareness amongst the target audience.
A Young Person’s Journey
When joining the app, user [greensmellywombat], aged 17, expressed frustration with the way they were treated by their parents*:
They often shared their feelings and sought support from the Tellmi community by posting regularly. During one of these instances, they discussed the difficulties they were facing in forming new friendships:
The Tellmi community provided empathy, understanding, and provided support:
*Posts have been modified to protect anonymity whilst retaining the original meaning.
Outcomes
1 in 8 local young people were reached directly.
A 159% increase in young people from the project area using Tellmi for support. The majority of users came from regions with the highest levels of deprivation. Of these young people, 292 accessed the Greenwich NHS portal for additional local support.
The pilot demonstrated higher-than-expected levels of participation across all age groups. A positive outcome of the pilot was that a significant number of boys chose to use Tellmi for support.
Tellmi successfully engaged over 5,500 local young people through in-person work.
Physical marketing campaigns and use of social media generated over 19,000 measured interactions in the target age range.
A total of 657 young people across Greenwich used the Tellmi app during the pilot.
969 young people participated in workshops.
During the project, local users made 1,044 posts and received 2,342 replies.
Tellmi counsellors intervened in 31 instances to support young people presenting high need. In one of these instances, the user revealed they were taking steps to end their life. Tellmi was able to support this user in the app and to get them to seek out of-app support, showing our capability to also help those in crisis.
Users accessed local support via Tellmi 849 times.
“Working with Tellmi has been a real eye-opener in terms of the services available to children and young people across London. Tellmi has shown great initiative in it work towards supporting our young people who face so many challenges and the drive to continue to help, support and guide is very inspiring.”
– Rachel Burrell, CYP Commissioning Manager
Tellmi is a secure and anonymous app that provides 100% pre-moderated peer support and psychoeducation for young people aged 11 and above.
It has already helped over 80,000 young people and is trusted by the NHS and schools.
The app is closely monitored by human moderators, and we have a preemptive system in place to provide professional help to those who post high-risk content.
The Tellmi directory contains a variety of psychoeducation tools and crisis support resources for neurodiverse young people. We are a social enterprise with a strong mission to make a positive impact.
Get in touch
If you would like to find out more or get a quote for commissioning Tellmi in your area or school please contact us and we will be in touch.