About Our Foundation
Regroup Foundation is a non-profit founded in 2021 with a singular focus: to help families share resources & best practices to manage teen mental health issues. Our strategy is simple. First, we’re collecting family reviews of local caregivers and facilities, sorted by condition, location, and efficacy (according to family ratings) to make sure everyone is aware of the best practitioners. And since we know that therapy is only part of the solution, we ask families to share other ideas that were instrumental in helping kids recover—whether it’s medication, a change in sleep routine, volunteerism, exercise, social or school changes. With the understanding that every case is unique, what was the “recipe” of resources that was most helpful to your family? We do this through an anonymous Internet platform to protect patient privacy.
Who We Are
A 501(c)3 charitable organization created and run by parents with a background in health information
A repository of peer-generated best practices to help battle teen/pre-teen mental health issues
How do we do this?
- We collect and share family reviews of mental health providers and facilities, sorted by condition, geography, and efficacy (as determined by real patient reviews)
- We share best practices (from families who have been through it…) regarding ways of managing mental health that are not captured in formal treatment reviews: e.g., medication, sleep routines, school routines, social patterns, volunteerism, exercise, etc.
100% independent of commercial interests that bias other healthcare review sites
Dedicated to improving the flow of information in mental healthcare
Who We Aren’t
A place for families in acute crisis. That’s a job for 911,
emergency rooms, and/or the Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255.
A “review” site that’s actually funded by caregiver & facility marketing and advertising dollars. That’s the business model of many existing review sites.
A lead generator that puts patients in touch with providers (another common business model). We leave it to patients and providers to connect on their own.
A backdoor method of collecting data for other purposes. We won’t sell or share your information.
Why We Exist
- Too often, the success stories in mental healthcare remain untold. We need to ensure that all families benefit from the successes (and to the extent possible, avoid some of the failures) of families that have been there, done that
- We have an epidemic of teen and pre-teen depression and anxiety. We won’t belabor the point, but will cite a single statistic: in 2019—that is, pre-pandemic– 20% of teen girls had at least one major depressive episode as defined by clinicians
- There’s a huge void of information with respect to mental healthcare outcomes. Where do families turn after a pediatrician hands them a list a dozen psychiatrists, psychologists, and other therapists? Where can we find real-world, peer-generated information on mental health facilities that’s based on the actual experience of families in the same geography? The status quo is a) word of mouth; and b) marketing information provided by the providers themselves.
- The “review” sites on the market today are usually funded by caregiver &facility advertising and marketing dollars. This creates obvious incentive problems.
- No provider can be an expert in all mental health conditions. ReGroup helps steer families to the best providers for specific conditions such as bipolar disorder and eating disorders.
- We can do better than this! Regroup Foundation was created to help fill the information gap, without the influence of conflicting incentives.
How the Site Works
Register
Users interact anonymously on the Regroup site.
Sign up and confirm via e-mail to access the functionality of the site. We will not share your information with any third parties… period. Users that have not registered will be limited to the “About Us” and “Additional Resources” sections of the site.
Your user name connects you to the reviews that you produce on the site, and enables anonymous communication with other users on the site, if desired, through our Private Message (PM) system.
You’ll be asked to execute a disclaimer as part of the registration process.
Share a Caregiver or Facility Review
This is the heart of the site, and it’s opportunity to help other families benefit from your experience. Here’s where you’ll review a caregiver or treatment facility, based on your family’s first-hand experience. By “caregiver,” we mean an individual therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, or other professional counselor. A facility can be inpatient or outpatient, long-term or short, and includes therapeutic boarding schools.
We’ll ask for a few pieces of basic information and ask how strongly, if at all, you’d recommend this caregiver to others.
Your review helps us steer future users to the most effective providers for specific conditions such as eating disorders, self-harm, and ADD/ ADHD. And finally, we’ll ask you to freestyle it, and tell us anything else you’d like other families to know about this caregiver (what worked well? What did not work well?).
Share a Strategy
Formal therapy and medical treatment is only one piece of the recovery puzzle. Here we ask the community to share actionable ideas outside of the therapist’s office that have helped young people. We’re looking for specific, actionable ideas that 1) can’t be found in a book; 2) can be replicated by other families; and 3) often cite specific local resources (e.g., “Mary volunteered twice a week at PetsInNeed in Palo Alto…”). Sample ideas include volunteer opportunities; exercise and outdoor activities; sleep-related suggestions; and changes in school and social routines.
Learn from Others: Read a Review
Here’s your opportunity to learn from the successes and missteps of other families in your local mental healthcare
ecosystem. Search for caregiver or facility reviews by specific mental health condition(s) and desired geographic radius. The site will sort and display reviews based on fit and efficacy, drawing solely upon the evaluation of other families on the site.
Learn from Others: Read Strategies
Search for specific, actionable strategies outside the therapist’s office. Users can search for strategies by category (e.g. Volunteerism) or zip code. The ability to search by location opens the door to very specific local recommendations (e.g., “the Nueva SEL teacher in the Lower School really helped us through a tough time…”).
Private Messaging Capability
Have a question or comment about a specific Review or Strategy? Registered users can contact the author of a review or strategy back-channel through the site’s anonymous Private Messaging system.