Research behind TalkLife Workplace
We are the only peer support platform clinically evidenced to increase users' confidence in their ability to manage their own mental health and reduce harmful behaviours.
A recent study (Rickard et al. 2022) also placed TalkLife in the top ten of quality mental health apps, after it scored highly in areas including accessibility, security and privacy, and evidence and clinical base.
We’re proud to have an ORCHA score of 82%, which breaks down key assessment criteria relating to clinical assurance, data privacy, and user experience.
Our employee platform is rooted in in-depth mental health and peer support research. Find out more below.
Today is a good day 😊
Peer drives employee wellbeing
Peer support research has shown that it’s associated with:
No one understands the unique challenges, pressures, and uncertainties of workplace life quite like peers from around the world who have faced similar struggles.
Employees often seek connection with others on equal footing - where they can be heard, understood, and accepted. Peer support fosters this vital sense of belonging, which is essential for mental, emotional, and overall wellbeing.
When employees are struggling, they often just need reassurance that they’re not alone and the confidence to express their needs.
Our commitment to impact
Impact-focused and transparent reporting
Our impact framework underpins our product development and our extensive mental health research programs with some of the world's leading university teams inform our understanding of mental health and the critical role technology can play in offering support. We hold a strong commitment to tangible research outcomes that have timely and relevant applications.
We are also committed to understanding our own impact as a platform and regularly undertake assessments and research to understand this.
Reporting and
data-sharing
As a TalkLife Workplace organization, you will receive quarterly de-identified reports that highlight current usage patterns and any key trends across your employee community.
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Patterns of usage
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Engagement levels
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Mood and topics discussed
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Outliers and community sentiment
Your organization-specific trends and data will remain confidential and will not be shared with any third parties or partner organizations. We’ll also support you in building engagement and raising awareness of TalkLife Workplace among your employees, leveraging insights from current trends.
The best minds across suicide prevention, self-harm, and the provision of mental health support online
Our Advisory Board provides a clinical steer across all safeguarding and platform development.
Clinical advisors
Data protection and security
At TalkLife Workplace, we strive to uphold the highest data privacy standards for our users. We have implemented a suite of security across our architecture to ensure our members’ privacy and security are upheld. Through our governance and overarching management, we continually review our security policies and procedures.
We comply with the relevant data security and privacy standards of the UK, Australia, the US, and the EU. More information about what data is collected and how it is collected can be found in our privacy policy here.
TalkLife Collaborator / Advisor
MD, Microsoft Research
TalkLife Advisory Board
Exec Director, Suicide Awareness
Voices of Education
TalkLife Advisory Board
Director of the Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery
TalkLife Advisory Board
Edgar Pierce Prof. of Psychology
Harvard College Prof. Chair,
Dep. of Psychology, Harvard University
TalkLife Board / Advisor
LEO Innovation
TalkLife Advisory Board
Alan Turing Centre
TalkLife Advisory Board
Reid Hoffman Fellow
MIT AI Data Scientist
TalkLife Advisory Board
Consultant Psychiatrist, UKCCIS, London Digital Mental Wellbeing Service
Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of Social Research
TalkLife Advisory Board
Director, National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline
A.M., Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology, Harvard University
Chair, TalkLife Advisory Board Director Research and Safeguarding TalkLife Ltd
Research Partners
World-leading
research partners
Our researchers are working on key research questions across topics including:
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Machine learning
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NLP modeling
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Online safety
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Peer support and online communication
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Self-harming behavior and suicidal ideation
TalkLife Workplace is committed to engaging with peer support research, demonstrating our impact, and contributing to the evidence base. We are passionate about peer support and its potential to meet the increasing demand for mental health support. We want to put an end to people struggling alone and reach any employee who needs support.
TalkLife Workplace collaborates on world-leading research projects and works with teams and universities who help us to understand and improve the lives of people who are struggling with their mental health.
Our partner institutions include:
Cornell University
Promoting recovery from non-suicidal self-injury: Assessing the efficacy of a mobile intervention for reducing self-injury severity
Nottingham Trent University
Exploring relationships between mental health problems, triggers and consequences and potential of deep learning and AI for support.
University of Washington
How do interactions between users impact their mood and user behavior in short and long-term, with implications for training of peers and counselors?
Microsoft Research
Moments of change: Analyzing peer-based cognitive support in online mental health forums
University of Central Florida
Exploration of the intersection of adolescent online safety, mental health, social support and coping for teens.
Harvard University
A collaboration between TalkLife and researchers from Microsoft Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University to better understand and predict self harm, with the aim to create meaningful interventions.
The Alan Turing Institute
Creation of robust longitudinal NLP models for capturing changes in language use and other online behaviour over time as a proxy for assessing mental well-being.
Georgia Tech
Development of computational and analytical approaches to examine and understand 'coming out of the closet' expressions in online communities, how it affects mental health in LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) individuals, and how online support communities cater to these needs.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
University of Guelph
Impact of online communication to self-injury
Ulm University
Understanding online communication between peers who self-harm
Swansea University
This is part of a larger study utilising electronic data to address key challenges around children and young people’s mental health.
