Q&A: Kevin Winters, General Manager of Kooth Digital Health in the U.S.

RamaOnHealthcare October 23, 2023

Meeting Young People Where They Are

Today, RamaOnHealthcare welcomes and talks with Kevin Winters, General Manager of Kooth Digital Health in the U.S. Kevin Winters is an accomplished healthcare executive with two decades of extensive international experience, having worked in the U.S., U.K., Middle East, and Southeast Asia. He currently serves as General Manager of Kooth Digital Health’s American business and is based in the Midwest.

Kevin Winters, General Manager of Kooth Digital Health in the U.S.

RamaOnHealthcare (ROH): Welcome, Kevin. Congratulations on Kooth Digital Health’s recent expansion into the U.S. Can you share with our readers a bit about Kooth’s background and who you serve?

Kevin Winters (KW): Kooth Digital Health is an evidence-based, free mental health platform for young people. Our platform is supported by more than 20 years of clinical research, and real-world evidence focused on improving pre-clinical mental health and wellness challenges. We serve more than 16 million people worldwide and have approximately 90% coverage across the National Health Service (NHS) in the U.K.

We designed an evidence-based behavioral platform that pairs private, confidential chat-based counseling to give young people the tools they need to build better lives. While we cannot singlehandedly solve what has historically been an intractable problem (lack of mental healthcare for young people costs $387 billion annually), we chose to focus on the massive “missing middle” – the vast majority of young people who do not have a mental health diagnosis or are not facing an immediate crisis, but who are struggling with pre-clinical emotional, social and mental health challenges.

Our accessible and self-directed platform is empowering millions of users worldwide to identify, manage, and address challenges to successful daily living, including anxiety, loneliness, and more, by providing culturally relevant, evidence-based tools and techniques to handle life’s ups and downs.

We also have a team of researchers whose sole function is to contribute to the science of behavioral health interventions digitally. To date, they’ve produced more than 30 peer-reviewed papers and we’ve been cited in four academic chapters as international best practices for online mental health.

Our platform is grounded in research and science, and the clinical and financial efficacy of our solution is peer-reviewed by leading international institutions. For example, for every $1 invested in our platform, the healthcare systems save $15. And 95% of our users get the support they want and need without requiring costly, long-term counseling.

Not only does the right pre-clinical support improve health and wellness outcomes for exponentially more young people, but it also potentially staves off bigger and more complex treatment needs in the future.

ROH: Kooth is unique in that it focuses on early intervention before there’s a crisis or even a diagnosis, which is different from many of the other behavioral health tools we’ve seen. Why is this so important?

KW: That’s exactly right. We provide pre-clinical support and early intervention resources to young people ages 13 to 25. Among this age group, all the trends are going in the wrong direction. On average, approximately 75% of lifetime mental health problems are established by age 24, but healthcare systems globally are behind the curve as 90% of spending is on acute adult mental healthcare treatment.

The key is to help young people with mental health upstream — before they are ever in crisis and even before a diagnosis. Our research shows that this early intervention – investment in skill building, building resilience, and skills for mental health management – can help young people for a lifetime. And we also know that pre-clinical interventions have been vastly overlooked as the market struggles to address the critically ill and struggling young people. That has created an overlooked segment of young people – the “missing middle” – and that’s who we aim to support.

ROH: Where is Kooth available?

KW: Founded in the U.K. in 2002, Kooth entered the U.S. market in late 2021, and in a little over two years, we have achieved incredible progress in demonstrating how to effectively scale youth mental health services. We’re launching new public and private sector partnerships, greatly expanding our U.S. footprint to help as many young people as possible receive equitable access to early intervention and further build their skills and resilience.

In Pennsylvania, the platform is available to approximately 150,000 students. In California, all 13- to 25-year-olds statewide – more than 6 million young people – can access mental health coaching and support beginning in January 2024 as part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $4.7B mental health initiative, one of the world’s largest and most ambitious digital behavioral health programs.

In July 2023, Kooth was named in the Governor’s Association Playbook for addressing mental health in young adults. The Playbook is intended to serve as a blueprint for states to further impactful policy solutions that strengthen youth mental health.

ROH: Walk us through what the platform experience is like. How does one engage with Kooth?

KW: There are three pathways to explore, and we never dictate the way a user engages with the app. We believe in choice over prescription.

The first way to use the app is through an online self-help collection. This includes articles, podcasts, videos, and tools to build resiliency. The second pathway is through our confidential online peer-support community. This is a very powerful tool that allows young people to benefit from the lived experiences of others in a safe and clinically moderated forum, unlike social media platforms. The third pathway is through our professional support model with a licensed mental health professional.

We believe in meeting young people where they are, so this is done — either synchronously or asynchronously – through text-based chat. The majority of our users are single-session users who log on to Kooth for a chat when feeling stressed, isolated, anxious, or angry and have a text-based conversation with a licensed professional.

We use a goals-based outcome measure, and we know that 74% of users are achieving their life and therapy goals through Kooth. 75% of users find Kooth benefits their mental health.

ROH: Who are the people behind the app?

KW: We’re continuing to build upon our incredibly talented team of leading researchers and data scientists, product and tech pioneers, experienced and compassionate clinicians, and those focused on creating the best product possible to increase access and awareness to upstream mental health solutions for young people.

As for those who engage with our users, our trained team of specialists – all of whom are credentialed and licensed within their respective states — assist users with a variety of areas, including stress, anxiety, sleep, relationships, self-esteem, trauma, and much more. These professionals include peer-reviewed specialists or Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC), Licensed Social Workers (LSW), and Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW) by the state in which they operate.

ROH: What got you into this line of work?

KW: I have a personal and professional passion for what Kooth does. I would go as far as to say that there’s no greater work I could be doing. I’m originally from the West Coast of Ireland, and my age group and demographic (early millennials, I suppose) have suffered from mental health issues and suicidal ideation, particularly young males in that part of the world.

I’ve experienced the devastating loss of friends who have died from suicide in my teens, twenties, and thirties. It’s quite personal for me to be part of moving the needle in mental health, specifically in equity of access and awareness.

ROH: Mr. Winters, thank you so very much for sharing your insights and expertise with our Readers. We wish you all the very best in transforming global healthcare!