World Health Organization (WHO)
WHO plays a significant role in ADVANCE, as 4 of 5 interventions to be used in the project are developed by its team. ADVANCE aims to add in to the evidences of effectiveness of these interventions, in order to be adapted and applied largely to different vulnerable groups.
Team members
Dr Ken Carswell has a background in clinical psychology and is a Mental Health Specialist with the WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance Use in Geneva. He is the departmental focal point for innovation, digital mental health and scalable psychological interventions.
He has been centrally involved in the development, testing, and more recently, implementation of WHO scalable psychological interventions for populations affected by adversity. These include Self-Help Plus, a multi-media stress management course and Step-by-Step, an online self-help intervention for depression, which is available as a free service across Lebanon. Most recently he has led the development of a WHO chatbot for adolescent and youth called STARS, which is currently being tested in a randomised controlled trial in Jordan.