This week, Innerworld announced their partnership with the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) with the goal of improving veterans’ overall well-being and sense of community and belonging. Innerworld is an innovative virtual mental health platform. Their strategy is based on peer-to-peer driven mental health. They have created a safe virtual world and welcoming community and hope to extend that over to the veteran community through this unique partnership.
The collaboration will begin at six Veteran Administration medical centers and Veteran Health Care Systems in Houston, Detroit, New Orleans, Orlando, Palo Alto, and the greater Gold Coast. The plan is for 100 Meta Quest headsets equipped with the Innerworld app to be distributed to the sites to create a safe space for veterans to engage in peer-to-peer support. Veterans will also have access to proven mental health tools and resources from Innerworld.
Innerwold
Innerworld was co-founded by Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Jewel along with Noah Robinson. Noah Robinson built the foundation for Innerworld during his doctoral research in clinical psychology at Vanderbilt University. They’ve received funding from investors, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation. The platform offers anonymous peer-to-peer support via self-created avatars who are then led by guides trained in Cognitive Behavioral Immersion (CBI). CBI is a psychological intervention developed by Robinson while at Vanderbilt University. It has demonstrated efficacy for a range of mental health challenges including depression, anxiety disorders, substance use disorder, and more. Innerworld also recently received a $2M grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to continue research on how CBI tools help reduce the symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Committed to Supporting Veterans
Innerworld has shown its commitment to the veteran community and their families by already establishing a community of over 3,000 veterans and their family members. Veterans can head to Innerworld’s website to participate in veteran-specific programming.
“We are honored to collaborate with the Department of Veterans Affairs in this transformative endeavor,” said Noah Robinson. “This collaboration comes at a pivotal time as we face high rates of veteran suicide. Our platform provides a virtual sanctuary where all veterans can connect, share experiences, and receive the support and tools they need and deserve, regardless of time or location.”
“Accessible mental health tools are so critical and veterans are such an important part of our society,” said Jewel. “We’re excited to continue sharing Innerworld’s proven resources with veterans in a new capacity.”
Innerworld’s partnership comes through a collaboration with VA Immersive. VA Immersive is a division of VHA’s Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning. The VA hopes to continue to expand this technology to more places to help more veterans with their mental health. VA Immersive has already deployed over 3,000 headsets across more than 170 VA sites of care in all 50 U.S. states, Guam, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico. Partnering with Innerworld is one more way that VA Immersive is working to expand mental health care options to veterans.
