Ask a small lived-experience group which navigation problem is most frustrating.
500 Queens / Mental Health Support
Mental Health Support
Help people find a suitable next human support step without turning distress into a product label.
Follow the connections. Choose your direction.
The need worth working on.
Finding support can involve confusing services, repeated explanations and practical barriers such as transport, cost, language or time. A new venture should ask which barrier people want help with rather than assuming that an app, chatbot or motivational message is the answer.
What the enterprise could offer.
Co-design a non-clinical service-navigation tool with people who have lived experience and qualified mental-health professionals. Begin with a small, current resource map and clear descriptions of what each service does. Individual care and urgent support remain with appropriate human services.
People to build with
- Adults trying to understand local support options
- Community organisations helping people navigate services
- Carers looking for clear information about available support
Find one appropriate next step
Choose a bounded locality or service type and verify the listed information.
Test the guide using fictional situations reviewed by qualified professionals.
Observe whether people can identify a suitable next contact without disclosing personal health details.
Agree who will keep the information current and how users can report errors.
The first result
A reviewed navigation guide, maintenance responsibility and participant feedback.
What needs to be demonstrated.
Practical pilot
The starting evidence
Healthdirect provides information about Australian mental-health services. This concept would help navigation, not establish a treatment or diagnosis.
The open question
No clinical provider, support capacity, response arrangement or evaluated service outcome is confirmed.
The next measurement
Test whether users can locate and correctly understand the selected service option.
Build the means to deliver.
Useful capabilities and resources
- Paid lived-experience advisers
- Qualified mental-health reviewers
- Current service information and a named maintenance owner
A possible business model
Commissioned navigation and accessibility work for organisations, with no need to sell personal health information.
A leadership decision to practise
Define the service's limits visibly and involve the people seeking support in decisions about language, access and data.
People, consequences and decisions.
- Outdated service details can frustrate people seeking help.
- A friendly interface may imply care that nobody is available to provide.
- Navigation barriers may remain outside the tool's control.
If equality were being designed now...
- Can a regional woman use this without transport, privacy or language becoming another barrier?
- Can people browse anonymously and choose human help?
Begin with women's own experiences across bodies, ages, cultures and places. Invite disagreement and choose a practical change together.
Create a women-led design brief →Build your learning council.
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From the original suggestion to a working brief.
Developed from original enterprise 98 in the 500 Queens VC NEW Long presentation (slide 18) and the planning document (page 8). This expanded brief is a proposed development path, not evidence of an operating venture or a confirmed partner.
Original title: Mental Health Support. The pilot, business model and learning connections on this page are proposed developments of that original idea.