The Space Between Us - A digital platform for Mental Health

A scalable, relational, digital platform for mental health, providing assessments, workshops, e-learning tools, communities and online therapy so that we can proactively develop mental health skills to become more resillient and therefore effective.

Linda Mthenjane, clinical psychologist, entrepreneur and experienced HR Executive is the founder and management director of The Space Between Us.

Mental Health is core to the effective functioning of every person and we all move along a continuum between "great" and "struggling" as we journey through life.  In South Africa, this is amplified by the impact of Apartheid, poverty, gender based violence and (now) Covid.  Given the scale of the problem, there is no way we can provide face to face professional help to everyone, so we want to build a digital platform for the masses to be able to proactively understand and engage with mental health and build the skills that enhance resillience and personal effectiveness in yourself and those around you.  "The Space Between Us" denotes the fact that we believe relationships and community are a key component for sustainable mental health for everyone!

TSBU will initially focus on corporate employees and specifically the mental health impacts of Covid‑19.  The pandemic and the lockdown have deprived people throughout the world of much of the structure and stability in their lives.  In addition, loss of relationships and shrinking of communities have left us with less support during this most critical time.

TSBU has the opportunity to provide a solution to these immediate mental health challenges as well as guidance on how to navigate the post-pandemic environment to employees of many of South Africa’s companies.  The Covid-19 focus will be replaced by a broader mental health proposition developed on the basis of increased direct customer interaction and needs. In the last 4 months, we also had the opportunity to pilot a mental health program to a group of Young Black Professionals.  We have developed deep insights into the highly complex interactions between growing up as a “super intelligent outsider”, building skills and defence mechanisms to survive through university and then having to find one’s own identity and purpose in a working environment that is foreign to you in every way.  A powerful holistic offering has now been developed and will be taken to market soon.

At TSBU we belief in the importance of relationships to heal and pre-empt mental illness. We also believe that mental health is a lifelong journey for everyone.  A strong set of skills to manage mental wellness is invaluable along this life journey and TSBU will partner with customers every step of the way.  Our value proposition is therefore positioned on 3 core pillars, namely “educating to pre – empt”, “listening to heal” and “researching to eliminate”.

At TSBU we belief in the importance of relationships to heal and pre-empt mental illness. We also believe that mental health is a lifelong journey for everyone.  A strong set of skills to manage mental wellness is invaluable along this life journey and TSBU will partner with customers every step of the way.  Our value proposition is therefore positioned on 3 core pillars, namely “educating to pre – empt”, “listening to heal” and “researching to eliminate”.

Covid-19 and lockdown have created a specific opportunity to address the mental health needs of employees of companies and also increased openness to digital interaction.  This “B2B2C” opportunity is the strategic focus in the near future, which will allow TSBU more rapidly to build up scale and maturity (to achieve the wider long term objectives) in the customer proposition, a strong and diverse core team, an effective operating model, a technology platform and a financial model.

We believe mental health is key challenge across the continent and that our solution will have benefits in every sphere of society through scalable digital tech.

A detailed financial model has been built for 2021 to 2023 and the outputs as well as the underlying assumptions are set out below.  The model is based on detailed plans until the end of June 2021 and more static projections beyond that

• Lack of Understanding by Customers.  We need to find ways to attract customers to a new product and communicate to them how much they need it.  There is a threat that simpler, less robust offerings find it easier to gain traction.
• Attractiveness of the Opportunity.  As awareness of mental health needs increases, so the risk of new entrants increases.
• Medical and other Legislation.  In a number of areas, we will be challenging existing paradigms of the psychology profession and we will need to engage closely with stakeholders to ensure understanding and buy-in.

Global exposure and funding.

We strongly believe that our solution can make a massive impact on helping the world to recover from Covid and come out stronger on the other side.

(Apologies for rushed application.  Only heard about your competition last night!)

Anybody in the Mental Health space, incl new technologies

Data and analytics