Medibank has partnered with Smiling Mind with the goal of supporting the mental wellbeing of young Australians.
Smiling Mind is a not-for-profit focused on improving the mental health of young Australians through the practice of mindful meditation.
The new partnership with Medibank is designed to support Smiling Mind's goal of reaching five million young people by 2021.
It will focus on working with families to support their utilisation of mindfulness tools and resources through the Smiling Mind app and digital platforms.
Smiling Mind chief operating officer Sarah La Roche said the not-for-profit is excited to be joining forces with Medibank.
“Australia is currently experiencing unprecedented levels of youth mental illness, contributing to record levels of violence, bullying and even youth suicide statistics. Our focus is on enabling young people to develop key skills needed to help reduce these statistics, through formal and informal mindfulness practice,” said Ms La Roche.
“From our Smiling Mind community of over four million app and school program users, we know that parents are struggling to find easily accessible tools and resources to help them empower their children to be mentally healthy. We’re confident that this partnership with Medibank will help us support more families Australia-wide, as parents look to build mentally healthy homes.”
According to Medibank chief customer officer David Koczkar, “Smiling Mind will become a key partner for our Live Better program which supports the health and wellbeing of all Australians under the pillars ‘eat’ ‘move’ and ‘feel’.
"Smiling Mind will be integrated into our new Live Better rewards app in the coming months, which allows users to track a broad range of healthy actions, with eligible Medibank customers able to earn and redeem rewards.”
Medibank partnership activity will also focus on impactful content shared through Smiling Mind’s app as well as other digital platforms.
The partnership program will also include a new families program called ‘mindfully together’, featuring meditation programs designed for the whole family. The program will include extensive research to determine the next phase of tools and resources deemed to be the most useful to parents and families in the future.