GroupSesh

Front page
Survey Q1
Survey Q2
Survey Q3
Session Select
Chatroom
Conversation Help
Modules
Modules

Inspiration

Our team created Subtle Asian Mental Health Support on Facebook with over 14k members and originally, our group chats had high participation rates and consistent engagement around the clock from our members. As the group became larger and the chats grew bigger, we realized that participation rates dramatically decreased. We thought about whether social isolation and not feeling connected to the chat groups was a problem, so we wanted to develop something that still utilized social media, but also provided genuine interaction like our Facebook group as a whole.

What it does

GroupSesh is a conversation-based app that gives you a space to share your experiences and thoughts around mental health in group chat sessions.

In these intimate, safe groups you build trust and belonging through understanding and support with every member.

The initial onboarding experience lets you select mental health topics that you are most interested in discussing, as well as the predominant "role" you wish to have in group discussions.

What are roles? Conversations in GroupSesh are structured for individuals of varied experiences with mental health. We created the notion of "roles" for groups to help make it clear for everyone in the session.

Conversation Starter: A moderator of sorts for the conversation. They help with introductions and start the conversation. They make sure everyone feels comfortable and safe.
Supporter: Others that may have had similar experiences or are dealing with the topic at hand. They engage in the group and are there to comfort and support others.
Friend: Those that are close by being connected to loved ones that may be dealing with similar things to the topic. They are there to learn and understand more, and ask appropriate questions.

Mental health professionals will have access to a unique area of the experience where they can create and manage programs for users to join. In this space you will have a more structured session with a professional perspective.

The chatroom allows for text, audio, and video-based conversations to better facilitate the topic. Each member can decide how they would like to join and participate. There are conversational tools that can help in the discussions — text/image polls, helpful resources, and professional contacts.

As we move forward with the product, we look to build and improve-on an experience that makes having conversations around mental health easier, more open, and destigmatized. We want people to feel comfortable with sharing their stories and have a community that supports them so they know that they are not alone.

How we built it

We built a prototype as a full-stack javascript application and used a javascript framework called ReactJS and using the materialized UI of CSS framework. The backend uses express websockets. For our user interface and experience, we're using Figma to show the visual design of the our app.

Challenges we ran into

One of the challenges we encountered was narrowing down the idea. At first, the idea was very abstract and had too many options in the application, so it became very convoluted. We realized that the core idea of our app is to create a group session that facilitates human connection and sharing their mental health experiences.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We think the accomplishment we're proud of is being able to create a viable concept as well having a good team chemistry.

What we learned

Get focused quickly and work on time management and don't get carried away by extraneous ideas.

What's next for GroupSesh

We're hoping fully develop this by the end of the year as Asian Mental Health International and since we're partnering with Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI) in San Jose, we're going to see how this app can be applied for clinical application.