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The future of mental healthcare lies in digital innovation.

With over 10,000 digital mental health apps available and a global mental health apps market valued at $6.12 billion, telehealth, online therapy platforms, apps and other digital tools are becoming integral to mental healthcare.

Digital tools have the potential to improve access to mental health services, collect real world data, and deliver data-informed, personalized care. This potential has led organizations from the World Health Organization to the American Psychological Association to emphasize the benefits of digital mental healthcare.

“Digital mental healthcare helps extend access to mental health treatment and support,” says Katherine Presnell PhD, psychologist and research director at Pearson Assessments US.

Digital tools have the power to augment and reinforce concepts and techniques learned in therapy between sessions and capitalize on the unique innovations that a digital environment offers—but realizing these benefits requires overcoming challenges.

As we near the end of the year, it’s the perfect time to reflect on the content we’ve shared with you throughout 2024. From thought-provoking articles to expert-led webinars, and everything in between, it’s been a year full of insights, inspiration, and impactful content that resonated with all of you.

Whether you missed a post or just want to relive some of our great content, we’ve got you covered with a round-up of everything you loved in 2024.

It requires a specific kind of employee to pursue security clearance work. These individuals must embrace pressure and want to make a difference in national security. The constrained talent pool of cleared employees shows how unique this population is, and, on top of that, cybersecurity and technology roles in the intelligence community and government agencies require extremely specific skill sets. The rapid advancement of AI is accelerating this trend even further.

“The recent Executive Order on AI adoption is just the latest driver of talent demand in the security-cleared space,” says Andy Gill, strategic talent acquisitions lead with MetroStar, a northern Virginia-based digital services and IT modernization company focused on Federal, Department of Defense (DoD) and national security customers at the highest security levels. “The need for technical skills and security clearances means it’s more important than ever to not only find the right candidates but also to retain the cleared folks you already have and ensure talent mobility,” he adds.

How can staffing firms and HR professionals manage talent acquisition (TA) with this employee population and keep key positions filled? By emphasizing learning and development (L&D) opportunities, recruiters and TA teams can address both sides of this coin — recruiting qualified candidates and retaining valuable employees.

London, 31 Oct. 2024 – Pearson (FTSE: PSON.L), the world’s lifelong learning company, today announced it has acquired the assets of Revibe Technologies, a digital therapeutics company that has developed technology to treat children with attention- deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The landscape of mental health care is undergoing a significant transformation, driven by the integration of digital tools. Given that less than half of the 57.8 million adults diagnosed with mental illness received mental health services in the past year, the potential for digital technologies to enhance mental health care and prevention is becoming increasingly evident. Untreated mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety can have profound long-term health, social and economic consequences, emphasizing the need for prioritizing preventive mental healthcare.

Growth scale values (GSVs) have gained traction as a more precise option for measuring outcomes in clinical trials.

Addressing misinformation and promoting evidence-based understanding

If you attended the 2024 ADHD Virtual Summit, you likely watched the ADHD Evidence Project Presentation by Dr. Stephen Faraone. Dr. Faraone is clinical psychologist, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University, and President of the World Federation of ADHD.

With the proliferation of AI-driven recruiting software, it may seem that candidate screening is becoming easier than ever. But, for specialized employee populations — security cleared personnel, police and public safety officers, critical infrastructure employees and more — finding quality candidates can’t be solved with technology alone.

Some specialized labor pools are extremely small, like cleared employees. Other security-focused jobs are physically demanding and dangerous. These types of roles can present mental health challenges due to their high-stress nature. As a result, organizations across government and the private sector are struggling to recruit new workers.

Fortunately, there are tools available to HR departments and staffing agencies tasked with finding employees for high-security positions. Personality, behavioral and cognitive assessments complement existing screening tools and interviews, and they help identify potential employees with the personality traits needed for success in high-pressure or security-cleared roles. 

“High-security jobs inherently require a high level of stress management, adaptability and personal integrity in a candidate,” says Patrick Moran, Pearson’s director of sales for government and public safety. “Personality measures capture these and other key aspects of a person’s presentation of themselves in these unique workplace settings.”

Assessments can improve the recruitment process for high-security candidates in a number of important ways, including: