Brightline Announces Partnership with Peer Health Exchange to Develop Next Evolution of Company's Offering for Teenagers

Brightline and Peer Health Exchange's Youth Design Group will collaborate to shape Brightline's experiences for teens, centering BIPOC, queer, and trans youth perspectives

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Brightline, the leading virtual behavioral health solution designed specifically to support children, teenagers, and their families, today announced a partnership with Peer Health Exchange, a national nonprofit that has worked with over 168,000 young people to build healthier communities virtually and in school settings. Through the partnership, Brightline and Peer Health Exchange will work together to tailor Brightline's broad spectrum of services and resources directly to teens to ensure that more young people get the tools, coaching, and clinical care they need to support their mental health wellbeing, including:

• Collaboration with Peer Health Exchange's Youth Design Group, a team of young people trained in trauma-informed, youth-centered health design, to co-design and develop Brightline's upcoming expanded teen offering, which will launch this year with more enhancements coming in 2023. The team will gather insights and elicit feedback directly from teens with diverse backgrounds (all identifying as BIPOC and/or LGBTQ+) to inform the evolution of Brightline's care modalities to best serve teens.
• Trainings led by Peer Health Exchange and their youth advisors for programmatic and product teams to inform teen experience work and for the full Brightline team to dismantle adultist tendencies and deepen understanding of the misconceptions, biases, and barriers that young people often encounter from adults in mental health care settings, exploring how the Brightline platform and care teams can more fully respect, honor, and engage young people to improve their mental health.
• New tailored coaching programs, including programs on gender, sexual, and racial identity, trauma, and other important topics, to provide support for the major challenges facing teens, launching in May.

The partnership will also help inform Brightline's upcoming mobile app experience, which will include direct-to-teen onboarding and scheduling to put teens in the driver's seat. Additionally, Peer Health Exchange's innovative video resources emphasizing a near-peer approach are now available in Brightline's digital platform, Connect, to help teens connect and learn directly from young people who have gone through similar challenges as well as create a sense of community.

Brightline's collaboration with Peer Health Exchange comes at a critical time as the mental health crisis threatening teens worsens. Clinical anxiety and depression have nearly doubled in teens and adolescents compared to pre-pandemic prevalence rates, which were already on the rise. Suicide rates have also seen an increase among teens. These issues are even worse among young people of color and those who identify as LGBTQ+. Despite the urgent need, research has shown that many teens find traditional care models hard to access, limited in their approach, and difficult to sustain. Leveraging Brightline's innovative virtual care model and Peer Health Exchange's near two-decade track record of providing the resources young people want, this partnership aims to fill the gap in teen-driven mental health solutions centering on diverse youth.

"I'm excited about Peer Health Exchange's partnership with Brightline," said Wendy Marroquin, Youth Design Group member at Peer Health Exchange. "This is an opportunity for young people to give input, share their needs and wants, and ensure that what comes out of this partnership is inclusive. I hope that this partnership will lead to accessible resources for young people and our wellbeing."

"Today's teens face so many struggles and deserve support that is sorely missing. This expansion of teen-focused content with an emphasis on teen and near-peer voices is essential to meeting the diverse needs of teens," said Honora Einhorn, LICSW,  Senior Clinical Manager and Behavioral Therapist at Brightline. "I'm thrilled to partner with the Peer Health Exchange team to bring more teens quality, private, convenient mental health support that meets them where they are."

"Given the exponential increase in teen mental health conditions, it is imperative that those building services for teens integrate their unique needs and perspectives and leverage innovative models to increase engagement," said Chris Wilson, Director of Digital Learning at Peer Health Exchange. "I'm thrilled to partner with Brightline to bring these critical resources to more teens, caregivers, and families."

To learn more about Brightline and its offerings, please visit hellobrightline.com  

About Brightline
Brightline is the first virtual behavioral health solution built specifically to care for children, teenagers, and their families across a broad range of needs. With multidisciplinary care teams, evidence-based programs, and a family-focused approach, Brightline brings care to families across the country, right when and where they need it. Founded by leading digital health entrepreneurs Naomi Allen and Giovanni Colella, MD, the company is backed by leading investors KKR, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Oak HC/FT, and Threshold. Recognized as the pioneer in family virtual behavioral health, Brightline was listed as one of Fast Company's 2022 Most Innovative Companies and Fierce Healthcare's 2022 Fierce 15. Brightline is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA and is available nationwide. Learn more at hellobrightline.com.

About Peer Health Exchange
Peer Health Exchange's mission is to build healthier communities with young people. Together, we create education opportunities for peers to share the tools and resources young people need to make healthy decisions. To learn more about Peer Health Exchange, visit www.peerhealthexchange.org.

Media Contact
Catherine Sanderson
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SOURCE Brightline