July 2024

June was a month full of activities, starting with our first focus group involving the public. Your participation and insights were invaluable, thank you to all who contributed! We also had the opportunity to present our project at several key events (more info here):

• Second International Digital Mental Health and Wellbeing Conference (DMHW 2024) at Ulster University
• Second Workshop on Multimodal AI (MultimodalAI’24) at the University of Sheffield, where my poster won the best student poster award! 🎉
• CHCR Annual Showcase Conference 2024, organized by the Centre for Health and Clinical Research (CHCR) at UWE Bristol

Our project garnered enthusiastic interest at all these events, paving the way for future collaborations and external support. Most importantly, our co-design session provided valuable insights into the challenges faced by people with anxiety disorders in daily life and within the healthcare system. Despite some technical challenges (note: avoid using the Windows Whiteboard app), the session was a success.

July 2024: Technical Development and Funding Efforts

In July, our focus shifted to technical development. During my research visit at the University of Bristol, we began analyzing voice tone technology, which could be useful for our project later on. Meanwhile, Dr. David Western (CC’d) and I are considering to apply for further funding to bolster our resources for fully developing this project.

On the co-design front, we had to postpone the first focus group with clinicians to September due to logistical difficulties. In Autumn, we will also conduct our first focus group with students facing anxiety disorders. These sessions will conclude the ‘Pre-design’ phase of our six-phase plan, outlined in the image below, which also shows the expected timing for the other phases of the co-design process.

I also had the chance to present our project at the Researcher Coffee Catch Up organized by Dr. Carmel McGrath. If you missed it, you can watch the recording that will soon uploaded on YouTube at this page: NIHR ARC West.

Looking Ahead: August 2024

Next month, our efforts will continue to focus on the technical developments and funding search initiated in July. Additionally, we will prepare for the co-design activities scheduled for September.