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uSupport, Digital Mental Health Platform

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Key Details

Organisation Name

UNICEF

Location

Global
Worldwide

Website

Social

eMHIC Member Status

Community Member

At a Glance

Description

uSupport is a UNICEF-supported digital mental health platform helping young people access anonymous, culturally adaptable psychosocial support through scalable online counselling, psychoeducation, and referral services across multiple countries, including humanitarian and lower-resource settings.

Implementation Status

Pilot initiative

Operational across multiple countries with localised counselling, psychoeducation, workforce onboarding, and anonymous support models adapted to national mental health systems.

Target Population

Young people and adolescents

Adolescents and youth facing stigma, limited services, or mental health access barriers

Parents and caregivers

Families supporting young people experiencing emotional distress, behavioural challenges, or mental health concerns

Mental health providers

NGOs, clinicians, and community providers expanding access through digital service delivery

School counsellors, social workers

Educational psychologists and counsellors delivering scalable youth mental health support digitally

Impact & Outcomes

2025–2026
93.7%
Participant satisfaction rate with consultations
0
Reported unsafe incidents during consultations
17,740
Unique platform visits
27,869
Total platform visits
5,050
Gaza and Lebanon provider article views
93.7%
Participant satisfaction rate with consultations
0
Reported unsafe incidents during consultations
17,740
Unique platform visits
27,869
Total platform visits
5,050
Gaza and Lebanon provider article views
I like uSupport because it’s clear and accessible. Many young people now are afraid or do not have the opportunity to seek mental health help, especially in villages. uSupport is very convenient because you can use it from anywhere by just having your phone.

Diana, 18, uSupport user from Kazakhstan

uSupport itself creates a sense of a safe and friendly support space. It is clear that the initiative was designed with real human needs in mind, rather than just being a ‘tick’ exercise.

Martha, 21, uSupport user from Poland

The combination of being a free service with a professional, youth-oriented niche makes the platform stand out and immediately builds user trust. uSupport provides more opportunities to reach out to young people and helps to reduce stigma around mental health support.

Aisulu, mental health provider from Kazakhstan

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Initiative Overview

The Current Gap

Many young people globally cannot access timely mental health support due to stigma, workforce shortages, geography, displacement, fragmented services, and limited digital infrastructure. Countries often lack scalable, secure, and affordable digital mental health systems, forcing organisations to create isolated solutions with duplicated operational and compliance costs.

uSupport is designed as shared digital public infrastructure rather than a standalone application. Its architecture supports country ownership models, local adaptation, and long-term sustainability while reducing duplicated technical and operational costs across implementations.

Our Solution

uSupport is a UNICEF-supported digital mental health and psychosocial support platform enabling countries to rapidly deploy culturally adaptable online mental health services. The platform combines psychoeducation, anonymous engagement, online counselling, screening tools, referral pathways, and workforce enablement within a shared multi-country infrastructure.

Key Features

1

Anonymous access models

Reduces stigma barriers and enables safer early help-seeking for young people

2

Multi-country shared infrastructure

Accelerates deployment while reducing duplicated technology and operational costs across countries

3

Localised content management

Enables countries to adapt psychoeducation and services to language and cultural needs

4

Flexible counselling modalities

Supports video, audio, and text-based mental health support delivery

5

Privacy-by-design architecture

Separates sensitive data and strengthens confidentiality, governance, and trust

6

Workforce enablement tools

Helps existing providers deliver scalable digital mental health services efficiently

Collaboration in Action

Main Collaborators

No collaborators are currently listed. For more information, please contact Aida Ailarova using the details below.

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Key Learnings

Developing and implementing uSupport required addressing complex legal, safeguarding, and data protection requirements across multiple countries, while building trust in digital mental health solutions, adapting to diverse contexts, and balancing centralized standards with country-level flexibility, ownership, and sustainability.
Digital MHPSS solutions should be integrated into broader system strengthening efforts rather than treated as standalone technology products.

Early engagement with governments, youth, providers, and safeguarding teams, combined with strong governance and local adaptation, is critical for trust, sustainability, and successful scale-up.
International collaboration enabled UNICEF and partners to combine expertise across digital health, MHPSS, safeguarding, legal compliance, and technology development. It also facilitated shared infrastructure, cross-country learning, reduced costs, and adaptation of uSupport to diverse contexts while maintaining quality, security, and scalability.

Looking Ahead

Future priorities include expanding country deployments, with a focus on LMICs, including in humanitarian and crisis contexts; strengthening integration with national mental health and education systems; enhancing multilingual content; and improving outcome measurement capabilities.
uSupport is open to collaboration with governments (ministries of health, education, municipalities), NGOs, academic institutions, digital innovators, and mental health providers.
The long-term vision for uSupport is to help countries build sustainable, locally embedded digital mental health ecosystems and regulatory frameworks without requiring each country to independently develop and maintain complex infrastructure.
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Key Contact

Aida Ailarova
Project Lead/Adolescent Development Specialist
UNICEF

Email

[email protected]

Website

Media

uSupport - Investing in young minds

Resources

Website homepage image
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