Kooth

[Flibbertsandgibberts]

AIBU to think that the Kooth app/site is a bit dodgy? It's a mental health support app backed by the NHS but has a peer-to-peer support option which seems to be miserable kids advising miserable kids. It also self advertises that it relies on trust for the membership so adults can easily sign up.

My year 6 child and their class have been directed to it during SATS and looking into it I feel very uncomfortable.

I complained about it before the session was due to take place this year and they cancelled it. I don’t think schools are fully informed about Kooth. There’s another thread here https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5322819-kooth-and-gender-ideology-wrt-mental-health-and-young-people
Unless you tell them your concerns the schools won’t know. They just think they’re supporting children’s mental health.

Thank you! Unfortunately the school chose not to inform us that the session with the external providers was happening at all so we were unaware of it.

I'm shocked NHS money is going into this, especially since they're a data harvesting organisation.

Rubbish isn’t it. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Oh the NHS appear to love shoving people with mental health issues at one another to 'support each other'.

They were doing this in person 25 years ago when I was regularly accessing therapy groups and courses - a whole bunch of us, some with some really extreme shit going on, all shoved together, encouraged to socialise and support each other away from the hospital setting.

In the year that went on, before I realised the utter insanity of it - 1 of us was raped and 3 people took their own lives as a direct result of this idea.

I only knew because someone in another school locally said they’d been in so emailed the school to ask if one was planned. Not sure we’d have been told otherwise. I’d still raise concerns because they’ll have given the kids access details. I’ve heard some schools have the app or something on the kids’ tablets too

You are right to be concerned.

Kooth is great at self publicity but if you look at the experiences of children and young people and employees it's a very different picture.

There is no way for people to be tracked which means that if a child is threatening suicide or discloses abuse there is no way to track them down to keep them safe.

Emphasis is on the numbers who are supported but in fact, "supported" might mean that someone had a two minute conversation with someone to let them know there is no one available to speak to them - but this is logged as another person "supported." Priority is given to new users first "chat" - as this logs as a new person receiving support. Bullying is rife (management towards employees) and those who speak out are quickly gotten rid of. It needs an expose by someone as, as well as being a waste of NHS money, it's downright dangerous.

Compare this to other services such as Childline or NSPCC who both have similar chat facillities but people can be traced and so safeguarded. I know where I'd prefer my money to go

Wow that's shocking. I'm amazed the NHS are involved given the issues.

To be clear, it's not an NHS service - local authorities pay what I imagine is a huge amount of money for Kooth to be available in their area. In theory, it means that children and young people in that area have easier access to some form of mental health support

Hi, i had the same issue. With kooth being anonymous and the nhs funding it, I had a look. Im shocked that this service is allowed. Like you said, there can easily be adults signing up pretending to be children. I signed up to see if an adult could and with about 3 clicks I was In. Obviously signed out straight away but this felt very nerve racking and I dont think parents or the NHS know how unsafe this service could be.

I signed up a year or so ago to check it out. Obviously didn't post anything on it.

It seemed to be just kids writing about their problems and identities, and other kids commenting. Plus some poetry and pieces of writing. It worried me that a kid could hear some terrible advice from another kid, or just have no-one reply at all.

I couldn't really see any useful advice or any way to interact with a proper counsellor, though I may have missed it.

Trouble is camhs is completely over-stretched and there's little other support available, so maybe some kids find it helps them? Is it better than nothing? Not sure.

A previous workplace subscribed to it for about a year. As the ‘admin’ for it, I had access to the (anonymised) usage stats. It was pitiful.

About a third of the employees bothered to log in and only two logged in more than once. I wasn’t impressed with the content, either, and didn’t bother after the first look.