Toronto, May 03, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Inkblot Therapy and Green Shield Association are proud to announce the addition of internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT) to the groundbreaking Room For Her initiative – expanding the suite of accessible, effective, convenient, and affordable mental health supports available for Canadian women.
“During the pandemic, one-in-five Canadians report they’ve sought professional counselling for mental health concerns – and over 100,000 Canadian women have been forced to quit their jobs or take a sabbatical” noted Harriet Ekperigin, Vice President of Mental Health, Green Shield Holdings. “In response, Room For Her, our multi-year women’s mental health initiative that launched in November 2021, is stepping up to provide women with access to mental health support – when and where it works for them.”
The newest dimension to Room For Her comes via 10,000 complimentary subscriptions to the Tranquility by Inkblot's iCBT program – the gold standard therapeutic approach for helping people with anxiety and depression. Backed by science, the Tranquility platform was co-designed by a team of clinicians and individuals with lived experience of mental illness.
Available online or through the companion mobile app, Tranquility’s innovative program includes digital CBT lessons and skill-based exercises to help users reduce and manage symptoms of anxiety, depression, and anxiety-related conditions. Room For Her is also offering an additional 1,000 complimentary counselling hours.
Users can learn more about the therapy options via the Room For Her digital hub, launched on International Women’s Day, as well as access the following resources:
- Mental Health educational materials: Focusing on enhancing protective factors (e.g. resilience, coping, social support and social networks) and addressing risk factors (e.g. social isolation, discrimination, stigma and substance use), materials also include expert Q&As, videos, quick reads and resilience-building activities. Links to appropriate resources, tools and apps delivered by publicly-funded organizations are also available.
- Webinar and podcast series: In the weeks ahead, watch for webinars and podcasts focused on specific issues and topics relevant to women’s mental health. Inkblot will engage outside experts in women’s mental health, including academics, public policy experts and mental health professionals.
Room For Her – The story so far…
- Funded by the Green Shield Association and delivered by Inkblot Therapy, Room For Her is empowering Canadians who identify as women and are age 18+ by providing a choice of therapy options that help users find the care that’s right for them:
- Complimentary counselling hours – available in two 30-minute sessions or one one-hour session – from Inkblot Therapy
- Complimentary one-year subscription to Tranquility’s self-guided iCBT program
- An initial tranche of 10,000 complimentary counselling hours was released in November 2021, followed by the first Room For Her conference.
- In the past six months, Room For Her has enabled more than 7,000 women to access mental health support.
- The addition of Tranquility’s 10,000 hours of iCBT offering now brings the Green Shield Association’s investment in Room For Her to over $2M.
About Inkblot Therapy
Inkblot is on a mission to improve mental health at home, at work and beyond. From affordable digital counselling services to an innovative EAP program, Inkblot offers effective and accessible solutions for individuals and organizations that care. Inkblot’s corporate mental health program focuses on offering secure, easy-to-access video counselling that is available anytime, any place. Through advanced matching technology, individuals can easily find the best counsellors to suit their needs and preferences in just a few easy steps. With mental health insights employers can actually learn from, Inkblot has already helped over a million people start feeling better without the wait.
About Green Shield Canada (GSC)
Green Shield Canada (GSC) is shaping the health care landscape of the future with a unique brand of expertise and innovation. That starts with decades of health and dental benefits expertise and extends – through the GSC group of companies’ strategic investments and commercial partnerships – to health services delivery, via an ever-expanding digital health ecosystem, and health and benefits administration. GSC believes all Canadians should have access to services they need to improve their health and well-being, but for too many that’s not a reality. With a focus on filling gaps in the Canadian health care system in oral and mental health, GSC will invest $75M in oral and mental health initiatives by 2025 to drive measurable improvements in health outcomes for Canadians – and support a commitment to Better Health for All.
About Green Shield Holdings Inc.
Part of the Green Shield Canada (GSC) group of companies, Green Shield Holdings Inc. is the primary company used to house subsidiaries. Green Shield Holdings Inc. is itself a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Green Shield Association.
About Tranquility Online
Founded in 2017 in Halifax, Nova Scotia by Joel Muise, a former chartered financial analyst, and Dr. Alissa Pencer, a Clinical Psychologist and Senior Instructor with Dalhousie University, Tranquility is an online platform that uses cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to help people with anxiety and depression. The platform uses digital coaching to improve client adherence and create better mental health outcomes. Muise’s own experience with anxiety led him to create Tranquility – with the objective of reducing wait times and improving access to care for all Canadians. Tranquility is a graduate of Volta, the Halifax-based innovation hub, and proud to be working with Dalhousie University and the University of New Brunswick on a research project funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research. Tranquility was acquired by the GSC group of companies in August 2021.
