One of the therapists using Theratrak has taken home programs to the next level.
Read more about how one psychologist has used Theratrak to deliver psycho-education that sparked proven positive results for participants.
Below we share the background behind why the program was created, why Theratrak was the best solution to deliver the education, more about the creation and design of the program, and the amazing results participants experienced.
Meet Danielle Graber, Founder & Director of 12 Points Psychology with some of their therapy dogs: Rory, Jersey, and Winston.
ABOUT THERATRAK USER DANIELLE & 12 POINTS PSYCHOLOGY
Danielle Graber is the Founder of 12 Points Psychology - a private psychology practice with two locations in Melbourne. They’re a team of psychologists and counsellors who specialise in both mental health support and animal-assisted therapy services for children, adolescents, adults, couples and families.
Danielle is the leader of the 10+ team members at 12 Points Psychology and also runs a Facebook Group: Therapeutic Tools of the Trade - a private membership group for mental health professionals where they share resources and reminders to keep clinicians performing their best and avoiding burn out.
As Principal Psychologist and Director at 12 Points Psychology, Danielle spends her time managing her own caseload of clients and overseeing the team of mental health professionals), with the bigger mission of demystifying psychology principles and removing the stigma of seeking therapy. The reason Danielle created her own clinic was because she couldn't find one that existed with the workplace culture she wanted.
“I couldn’t find a workplace that had a team focused mentality (without the politics), that still encouraged autonomy, and that was dog friendly. So I created it with 12 Points. Within a year we grew to 10 psychologists, and in two years we had 20. All our team members were looking for the same things in the workplace as I was.” - Danielle Graber, Director at 12 Points Psychology
The 12 Points Psychology clinical team with their furry friends and therapy dogs.
THE PROBLEM: Everyone experiencing overwhelm
Overwhelmed clinicians and participants needing mental health support
We all know that taking care of our mental health is important and it’s essential for long-term wellbeing to get help when we need it.
The Department of Health states that one in five Australians will experience a mental illness each year. From 2019-2020 in Australia, over $11 billion was spent on mental health-related services - an average $431 per person according to Australian Institute of Health & Welfare.
Around March 2020 when the pandemic started to impact the Australian economy, the waitlists for psychology services grew exponentially around the country (ABC News & Sydney Morning Herald).
Millions of people around Australia were encouraged to stay home and avoid in-person appointments for the foreseeable future - so both wait times for existing appointments were longer and new people seeking mental health services had longer than usual wait times. There was even a call to trainee and retired psychologists to return to the workforce (ABC Gold Coast News).
More people needed access to mental health support services, and some had to resort to seeking emergency medical assistance after the waitlist situation didn’t improve (ABC News). Organisations like Lifeline and Beyond Blue had record-breaking numbers of people calling them for crisis support - a 30-40% increase in demand year on year (ABC News).
For the next 18 months or so, not only were clinics experiencing high demand and long waitlists, but the wider community were affected as both clinicians and admin staff were all rapidly approaching burnout.
“By the beginning of 2021, we had a 350% increase in referrals with no increased capacity to serve them. Our wait times increased from 3+ months to 18-24 months - and our intake team, who had to let people know that we couldn’t help them, started to be impacted by these conversations that were deferring issues to the future.” - Danielle Graber, Director at 12 Points Psychology
Danielle shared with Theratrak that mental health professionals are acutely aware of Maslow's Hierarchy, which states that things like psychological therapies can only be effective if a person's more basic needs are met first. That is, their physiological and safety needs have to be addressed before you can start working with them on their relationships for example. And while psychologists are happy to meet people at whatever stage they are on the hierarchy, it's the higher level work that is usually the most satisfying and creates the most long-term change.
During this time of great uncertainty and frequent stressors, both clinicians and participants were so overwhelmed that they were in survival mode. Their focus went back to ensuring they met the first two of Maslow's needs - physiological and safety needs. These feelings of overwhelm meant that everyone had to return to the basics of mental health support - ensuring good sleeping habits, eating healthy foods, staying hydrated and maintaining human connection.
With everyone experiencing overwhelm, Danielle knew there had to be a better way to empower participants with knowledge and support throughout this difficult time.
“So many people were in survival mode. Our whole mission is to make psychology more accessible and understandable. So when we had more demand for our services and greater wait times, that’s when we realised we needed to start thinking differently if we wanted to continue to help people.” - Danielle Graber, Director at 12 Points Psychology
THE SOLUTION: Using Theratrak to deliver psycho-education
Utilising Theratrak technology to send helpful content and reminders to participants
Understanding the power of technology, 12 Points Psychology already used SMS reminder services for participant appointments and Danielle wondered if they could leverage technology to provide more support for people needing mental health support at home in between sessions.
“Technology was always there. I do some sessions via telehealth with some regional participants. I’ve always done our supervision sessions via telehealth. And with our practice management software and other tools, we’ve been trying to get everything as automated as possible with reminders and billing.” - Danielle Graber, Director at 12 Points Psychology
So Danielle looked online and Googled: ‘therapy reminders’. And in the search results, she discovered Theratrak.
Thinking the Theratrak platform would be a great way to send home activities and reminders to participants, Danielle quickly signed up after seeing the platform was created by an experienced, Australian allied health professional, Founder and CEO Laura Simmons.
And for the first few weeks, Danielle used Theratrak the same way most of our clinicians do - to prescribe, track and monitor home programs. Theratrak functioned in the way Danielle wanted to and she was glad her participants had more access to their home programs and exercises.
While speaking with Laura, Theratrak founder and occupational therapist, they worked together to come up with how to utilise Theratrak and support 12 Points Psychology’s waitlist of people wanting to speak with psychologists.
“Long-term change doesn’t happen during the one-hour sessions. It’s the practice done at home and consistency that works. It doesn’t happen in one-hour once a fortnight or however frequently the therapy appointments are. That’s why home programs are so important.”- Danielle Graber, Director at 12 Points Psychology
In a recent 12 Points Psychology blog post, Danielle explained why therapists give homework: “mainly because it’s the best way to achieve real and lasting change.”
CREATING THE PILOT PROGRAM: Therapy Bytes
Utilising existing clinical knowledge to create repeatable home programs that help participants in between therapy sessions
After realising how Theratrak could be used as a home therapy content delivery and reminder tool, Danielle got to work creating the content for the program.
Danielle wanted to share some of the basic concepts of psychological science that’s usually covered in the first few sessions with a psychologist. The thinking was that if this knowledge is passed on to the growing waitlist of participants, then hopefully, they would be able to utilise that knowledge to feel better while they waited and would eventually come to appointments better prepared to approach their mental health treatment
Over the space of a month, Danielle pulled together resources for eight modules. Danielle made slides, recorded videos, created worksheets, resources and arranged content focused around:
how to identify and modify intense emotions
an introduction to breathing techniques to counter your stress response
recognising and dealing with automatic negative thoughts
The goal of the Therapy Bytes content wasn’t to replace therapy sessions with a psychologist. It was to empower participants to take charge of their mental health and set them up to figure out and work on their long-term goals. It aimed to do that by educating clients about their mood, anxiety and stress levels and give them simple strategies to help them better manage their day-to-day mental health.
Danielle committed to distil the ‘go-to most repeated’ messages for participants and wanted to present them in an engaging way. While Danielle usually uses whiteboards during in-person sessions, she relied on slides and other digital resources to support participants in the program.
PROGRAM DESIGN: 8-weeks of Therapy Bytes
The initial design of the program ran for eight weeks. Participants were screened by the intake team to determine their eligibility. Danielle wanted to ensure that all participants were not in mental distress and that if they were they were also seeing a mental health clinician. The programs were set up by a psychologist at the clinic who monitored each program and used asynchronous check in methods such as emails and texts to check in with participants.
Participants also completed a pre- and post-study evaluation questionnaire to determine their level of mental health distress and see if there was noticeable change after eight weeks.
Participants completed the DASS-21 (Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale). This is a set of three self-report scales designed to measure the emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress. They also completed the CORE-10 (Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation 10 ), which is a session by session monitoring tool with items covering anxiety, depression, trauma, physical problems, functioning and risk to self. The measure has six high intensity / severity and four low intensity / severity items.
Notifications were set up with the participants so that they could be reminded at a time that worked for them to complete the course. Participants were able to complete the course at their own pace and the overseeing psychologist would monitor their programs and send out each module according to their progress.
OUTCOMES OF THE PILOT PROGRAM: Long-lasting change for mental health
A noticeable improvement in mental wellbeing
Thirty-seven people signed up to participate in the Therapy Bytes pilot program. Just like in standard therapy sessions, some participants finished the modules on time every week while others approached completing the course in their own time.
Feedback from participants in the program has been overwhelming - in a good way.
Many people were surprised by the low cost of the program. Others were surprised by the simple content included in the program and how helpful it was. Participants get lifetime access to the program and most enjoy being able to go back to the content for refreshers and reminders of the basic mental wellbeing concepts.
“I was surprised by how many allied health practitioners and psychologists enjoyed doing the program themselves. Some worked through it with participants and it gave them a good structure to start from and concrete examples of best practice tools to refer to.” - Danielle Graber, Director at 12 Points Psychology
Many participants found the content inspiring and empowering. Rather than waiting to see a psychologist in-person, now they could learn, share feedback, and continue to practice the tools with the custom reminders built into the Theratrak platform.
100% of the 34 people who completed the pilot program showed a reduction in quantitative measures of psychological distress and t-tests showed this was a statistically significant reduction.
“The data shows that if you follow the program and do all of the exercises, you will feel better. You will feel better and you will know more about yourself. Your distress will come down.” - Danielle Graber, Director at 12 Points Psychology
The plans for Therapy Bytes in the future? Danielle is working to integrate Theratrak and the Therapy Bytes content into all of 12 Points Psychology regular sessions. So if a topic is only briefly discussed during a session with a participant, e.g., mindfulness exercises, a psychologist could prescribe the full mindfulness module for the client to do at their own pace in between sessions These at-home programs allow participants to work on their mental wellbeing outside of sessions and attend the next session better prepared.
“Responsibility for change ultimately relies on the client, and the more they take control of that the better.” - Danielle Graber, Director at 12 Points Psychology
Because there's such a demand for mental health education and support from different groups, Danielle also wants to create different versions of the program. A program focused on kids with anxiety, one for parents, and perhaps one for teens.
The goal of using Theratrak is never to replace individual therapy, but to help participants keep improving outside of sessions - so that eventually they can feel fully in control of their own mental health.
The furry friends and therapy dogs at 12 Points Psychology including Dexter, Winston, Maggie, Rory, and Jersey,
Are you an allied health professional looking for a tool that improves your workflow?
Theratrak was designed to make it easier for psychologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech therapists to prescribe, track and monitor home programs. The platform can help to alleviate waitlists and provide support on a much larger scale at a fraction of the cost.
Book a free demo today and we can show you how Theratrak can support you to support your participants better.
And if you’re interested in learning more about your mental health and what’s covered in the first few session with a therapist, please sign up to the Therapy Bytes program here.
Watch the 12minute presentation on the results from the Therapy Bytes program
with Danielle Graber from 12 Points Psychology and Laura Simmons from Theratrak
