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Symposia

Technology/Digital Health

Bridging Gaps in Access to Care: Designing, Adapting, Testing, and Disseminating Single-Session Interventions for Young People

4 - (SYM 11) Implementing Digital Mental Health Programs for Teens into Public Libraries

Friday, November 21, 2025
3:56 PM - 4:13 PM CST
Location: Empire B, Level 2
Keywords: Child, Technology / Mobile Health, Treatment/ Program Design
Recommended Readings: Schleider, J. L., Zapata J.P., Rapoport, A., Wescott, A., Ghosh, A., Kaveladze, B., Szkody, E., & Ahuvia I. (in press). Single-session interventions for mental health problems and service engagement: Umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 21. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-081423-025033,   Peters-Corbett, A., Parke, S., Bear, H., & Clarke, T. (2024). Barriers and facilitators of implementation of evidence-based interventions in children and young people’s mental health care – a systematic review. Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 29(3), 242-265. https://doi.org/10.111/camh.12672,   Joseph, J., & Rajan, S. K. (2024). Evolution of single-session therapy: A bibliometric analysis. The American Journal of Psychotherapy, 77(2), 71-78. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.20230054,   Kazdin, A. E. (2019). Annual research review: Expanding mental health services through novel models of intervention delivery. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 60(4), 455-472. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12937,  
Abstract Body



Background: Digital mental health (DMH) prevention programs have high public health potential to extend reach and maximize impact if implemented into organizations highly accessed by marginalized populations. Over the past five years, our research team has partnered with a community-based teen program within a public library, which is a key social service system for underserved populations, to adapt and implement DMH programs for teen patrons.

Method: This presentation will provide an overview of the library-academic partnership, including the activities that led up to the implementation of the DMH programs and the current implementation of these programs. The DMH program includes teen testimonials, local and national mental health resource repository, and single session interventions teaching anxiety management. We will discuss the pre-implementation activities used to iteratively adapt the program (i.e., interviews, design and usability sessions) and the current implementation of these programs within the library setting.

Results: We conducted individual needs assessment interviews with 17 library workers and 16 teen patrons. The library worker interviews revealed important implementation facilitators (e.g., availability of no-cost technological resources) and barriers (e.g., library worker confidence in supporting teen mental health) to consider when implementing DMH programs into libraries. Through design and usability sessions, 29 teens illustrated their lived experiences of anxiety (e.g., pounding heart; sweating), discussed used anxiety management techniques (e.g., breathing techniques, social support), and reported relatively high acceptability and usability reports of the adapted program. These results led to content and usability adaptations of the DMH program, that is currently being implemented and tested within a community-based teen program within a public library.

Conclusions: Our findings underscore the importance of working closely with deployment organizations and end-users prior to and during the implementation of DMH programs in community settings. Results also suggest public libraries are highly promising settings to deploy teen DMH programs.