Mental Health Innovations (MHI) is a charity delivering scalable, innovative, digital services and insights to transform the mental health of the nation. It was founded in 2017 with the support of the Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales.
Through its unique data insight and research, clinical expertise, innovation and partnerships, it focuses on supporting areas where its expertise enables it to have a positive outcome on the mental health of the UK population.
MHI powers Shout, the UK's only free, 24/7 text message support service, and The Mix, which provides free, anonymous online support with the important issues in young people’s lives.
Testimonials
We want to use the power of technology to reach the millions of people, especially young people, who feel isolated and alone, and help them to find the right place to talk. - Victoria Hornby, CEO of Mental Health Innovations
Our services: providing early intervention and crisis support
Mental Health Innovations is the charity behind our service (Shout). Shout began as a pilot in May 2018, and was launched publicly in May 2019. Shout Volunteers have taken more than 3 million conversations with nearly 1 million people who are anxious, stressed, depressed, suicidal or overwhelmed and who need immediate support. As a digital service, Shout 85258 is able to provide support at scale, with the ability to operate when traditional serviced are closed.
Alongside Shout, MHI also powers The Mix, a digital ecosystem supporting young people under the age of 25 through a range of services that comprise coaching, content, community and crisis support.
Testimonials
I was in a dark place and I didn’t want to carry on but you made me realise there is hope and things will get better.
Working in partnership to transform mental health
Mental Health Innovations works in partnership with charities, academic institutions and the corporate sector to transform the mental health of the nation. We have a research partnership with Imperial College London. We are working with researchers at the Institute of Global Health Innovation, the EPSRC Centre for Mathematics of Precision Healthcare, and the Data Science Institute, using anonymised, aggregated data, to generate unique insights into the mental health of the UK population. We use these insights to enhance our services and report on trends of interest for the broader mental health sector.
Our supporters
We are incredibly grateful to our existing supporters. These include The Royal Foundation, whose generous founding grant launched the charity, philanthropic foundations, a number of corporate and commissioned partners and private funders.
Who we are
Find out more about Mental Health Innovations' Board of Trustees, Youth Advisory Board and Senior Management team.
Diversity and Inclusion
In 2020 Mental Health Innovations established a Diversity and Inclusion working group. Their mission is to ensure that the organisation is truly diverse and inclusive, in order that we have a creative and empowered team that can develop and deliver high quality services to anyone who needs them.
We strive to be representative of the UK population at all levels of the organisation, from staff to volunteers and beneficiaries. We will facilitate open conversations that enable stakeholders to challenge our attitudes and working practices. We will identify where improvements need to be made to work towards our goals, make evidence-based recommendations, seek feedback and be held accountable for our progress.
In 2024 we also launched a Service User Voice Group, which comprises of eight people across the UK who have previously texted the Shout service, and in some instance volunteered too. This group was created to ensure that the voices of those who use the Shout text service and public member voices are heard, both through the improvement of the Shout service and the identification and development of research topics.