Pathways to Wellbeing

The project team combined research and mental health law expertise, experience in service delivery and community engagement, and technological innovation. Co-design and build of ‘Pathways to Wellbeing’ was deeply informed by research and community consultation.

The project proceeded in three phases: (1) research literature review and community consultation, (2) creation of content and design and building the guided pathways web application, and (3) evaluation of the guided pathways and exploration of further opportunities to scale.

We first reviewed the available research literature. It highlighted that Vietnamese people are deeply hesitant to engage with mental health services. We engaged in ethically-approved community consultation with frontline community workers and their clients to understand the mental health law needs of Vietnamese Victorians. Consultation was through semi-structured video interviews in English by a trained researcher fluent in Vietnamese.

Findings from research and consultation showed many of the same barriers present in most CALD communities like language and cultural barriers, and low awareness of services - as well as culturally-specific social stigma, low trust and historically-specific trauma.

To ensure our design was also informed by the experiences and insights of other community organisations, we organised a stakeholder workshop with other community organisations and government stakeholders. We shared our preliminary report with them, and gained their insights into access barriers and the role of technology in their communities. We incorporated their feedback into the design process.

The team used an Agile process, iterating over design and implementation of the web application, using critical insights of community members, staff, stakeholders, and feedback from other organisations. Critical insights were also gained by conducting usability testing throughout the design and build process.

A detailed final evaluation report into the research, consultation insights, design attributes and benefits of online guided pathways, usage and scale-up opportunities was also produced.

‘Pathways to Wellbeing’ was co-designed by the project partners and represents a new benchmark in design with and for CALD community organisations. Key issues raised through consultations informed the priorities and creation and design of culturally-appropriate content. Content created was legally reviewed and approved. We mapped out workflows to ensure priority areas were covered, the user experience was intuitive, frictionless and not overwhelming. We adjusted elements of the navigation in response to usability testing. We also identified opportunities for future phases.

Key issues were addressed in the software design and build by:

• Branding ‘Pathways to Wellbeing’ so it is recognised as coming from a known and trusted source, AVWA.
• Ensuring users are not asked for any identifying information, thus allowing for anonymity while also getting targeted information. (In some ways this also de-risks the web application as sensitive information is not being stored.)
• Ensuring good readability. Where possible, content was refined to grade 6 level equivalent. Where this was not possible we gave accompanying explanations and additional information.
• Allowing users to navigate and find information and services in both Vietnamese and English. This was very important in ensuring that intermediaries, particularly family members of different generations, can use the web application.

Given the pathways’ detailed and dynamic content, we developed and agreed a process to undertake the translations. The pathways were machine-translated into Vietnamese and then reviewed and refined by NAATI accredited human translators. Part of this iterative process involved ensuring content flowed and could be followed as a guided pathway. It was also critical to ensure sensitivity, especially when discussing mental health. AVWA staff played an important role in reviewing final translated content in the pathways.

• Emphasising free and low-cost local mental health, legal services and interpreting services thereby removing further barriers to seeking help.

Barriers to seeking help include social fear in being seen to be seeking help, and not knowing where to find appropriate support, particularly preferred language services. This is echoed in other CALD communities.

‘Pathways to Wellbeing’ responds to these barriers by providing people with confidential access to tailored, authoritative and culturally-informed mental health and legal information. The web application also connects people with trusted mental health, legal and interpreter services.

In the mental health context, family members and other intermediaries, like community workers, play an important role. Intermediaries can also use the pathways (and swap between English and Vietnamese) to access online help resources, expanding the avenues by which Vietnamese Victorians with mental health challenges can benefit from the information.

Design features include:

• Through questions and prompts, each pathway guides people to tailored information, helping identify relevant services and actionable steps they can take and connect to external trusted services.
• Giving people who are migrants and/or refugees a broad overview of the unfamiliar Victorian mental health and legal systems.
• Illustrations designed by a professional illustrator to aid cultural connection and understanding.
• A colour palette selected in consultation with the Victorian Vietnamese community and in line with a broader re-branding of AVWA.
• A font and name chosen as being easily readable in both English and Vietnamese.
• The design and build of a ‘mental health services finder’, a ‘legal services finder’ and an ‘interpreter services finder’ enabling relevant, free or low-cost local services to be found.

Guided pathways are particularly beneficial for community organisations as they face the challenge of delivering services to a large number of clients on increasingly slim budget. They can be used by members of the public to get targeted information without disclosing their personal information, and by intermediaries, like community workers, supporting their clients.

The ‘Pathways to Wellbeing’ project builds on the foundations, deep thinking and lessons of an earlier mental health law digital inclusion project involving project partners Mental Health Legal Centre, CQ University and Legal Tech Helper. In addition to using and adapting the protocols and design principles and processes of that earlier project, selected content about mental health legal rights and services was also licensed and repurposed from the Mental Health Legal Centre’s ‘Online Help’ web application.

Since its launch, ‘Pathways to Wellbeing’ has provided mental health and legal information to hundreds of people. Community members play an important role in promoting ‘Pathways to Wellbeing’, using it to open up conversations about mental health within families and the community itself, and thus helping to address the barriers to accessing mental health and legal support.

Broader community engagement plays a critical role in raising awareness of the web application and how it can be used - both in the Vietnamese community and potentially other CALD communities. To raise awareness and engagement, AVWA organised a community and stakeholder event, with the Minister for Mental Health, Ageing and Multicultural Affairs launching the bilingual ‘Pathways to Wellbeing’ web application in March 2024.

‘Pathways to Wellbeing’ helps different user cohorts (including people who need mental health support, their friends and family and community workers) in different locations. The scalability and flexibility of ‘Pathways to Wellbeing’ also extends to its subject matter, as it can be expanded as new services are rolled out, and adapted over time to meet changing needs and laws. ‘Pathways to Wellbeing’ is also scalable to other priority cohorts, like prisoners or other CALD groups, and to other jurisdictions through strategic partnerships with other organisations and/or government. It could also pivot to address urgent health concerns (like pandemics).