Each year, 26 percent of Americans will meet the diagnostic criteria for a mental illness. Yet many are not diagnosed, and only about one-third of those individuals diagnosed with a mental illness will receive treatment.

To help address some of these issues, Alyson Ferguson ’12 and Kate Carroll ‘12, graduates of the MPH degree program at the DUSPH, helped power an innovative design challenge by the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services and The Thomas Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation.

The inaugural Scattergood Design Challenge was the first time that design thinking was applied towards addressing mental health with a public health approach, according to Ferguson.

“Design thinking is a unique process for creating solutions and was the foundation of our project,” said Ferguson.

The first Design Challenge will seek out ways to maximize the impact of the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbilities Services’ Mental Health First Aid initiative. Mental Health First Aid is a public education program that teaches the public how to identify, understand, and respond to signs of mental illness and substance use disorders. These trainings aim to teach lay people how to support individuals in crisis until professional help arrives.

“It is important for our field to reframe the issues as behavioral health and wellness, over illness and diagnosis,” said Dr. Arthur C. Evans, Jr., Commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services. “This design challenge is an excellent strategy for involving the community in our ultimate goal of improving everyone's mental wellness.”

The work on the design challenge was initially the Community-Based Master's Project for Ferguson and Carroll, but they were recently hired by the Scattergood Foundation. Dennis Gallagher, an associate professor at the DUSPH, served as their academic advisor. The project also shared first prize for the best DUSPH master’s project last year.

“Using design thinking to develop the project has allowed me to tap into abilities I did not know I had,” said Ferguson. “This project has empowered me to be more creative and has allowed me to refine my problem-solving skills.”

Mental health is the first of several design challenges, while another group of DUSPH students has already started thinking about the next design challenge.