Talley Launches Mental Health Peer-to-Peer Therapy Platform
Updated: Oct 6, 2020
It's official: Talley, the mental wellness startup and peer-to-peer therapy platform, has just launched its crowdfunding campaign. A newly established mental health listener community, Talley aims at providing a safe place where people can speak to someone confidentially, and be truly listened to - especially during challenging times. Talley runs a weekly conversation on topics surrounding mental health, TalleyTalk, which has been helping people freely discuss how they feel during hard times, and how to deal with feelings of loneliness and isolation.
With the Center for Mental Health estimating that 500,000 additional people will experience mental health problems in the UK, with depression being the most common following the Covid-19 and a potential recession, Talley has opened the conversation about the repercussions of the pandemic in people’s personal lives, and provides additional support from listeners who can relate.
In the past few weeks Talley has also provided a platform for people to discuss various topics including masculinity and Racism and its impact on mental health. The conversation opened by the global Black Lives Matter movement in May 2020 have highlighted the need for a safe space for people to speak up and share their feelings without the fear of being criticised, shut down, misunderstood or even abused. Talley helps reduce the feelings of alienation and frustration during hard times, and gives users access to a network of people who are willing to listen, empathise, share and connect, based on lived experiences so they won’t feel like they are going through adversity alone.
Talley was founded in November 2019 by Lara Cena, a black female entrepreneur with a background working in IT as a Business Analyst. An advocate for mental wellness, Lara had the idea for Talley in 2016 after receiving a demotion at work and experiencing money issues and extreme sadness as a result. Within the space of a month, Lara realised her reference group could not relate to her issues, and that she couldn't speak to friends or family for fear of judgement. She needed a platform where she could anonymously speak to people who had experienced what she was going through, but couldn't find any safe space where she could connect based on experiences. Talley has been running conversations to understand its real values to users since its early days, and won TechStars StartUp Weekend in partnership with Google for Startups in November 2019 ahead of its launch.
Cena decided to create a platform that connects people going through emotional distress to other people who have experienced similar situations. Talley users are able to have one on one anonymous calls with listeners who can relate, share their stories via TalleyStories or they can join the weekly TalleyTalk group conversations.
“Our mission is to create a safe space for people to be really listened to” said Lara Cena, founder of Talley. “When there's no one to talk to, we would be there.”
Talley launched an AON (all or nothing) crowdfunding campaign via Natwest’s platform on 24 June 2020, with the goal of securing £15,000. Natwest will match the campaign by up to £5,000 following the bank’s Back Her Business pledge. This investment will allow Talley to develop and launch its app for peer-to-peer talking therapy, and expand its reach some more people can benefit from the services offered and build a secure platform for users. Talley is planning to launch more events to open the mental health conversations at work and outside of work, to help the community’s mental health, encourage genuine connections, and offer a safe space to heal.
"We want to create an app to house our growing community and to connect people based on similar life experiences while still maintaining anonymity” said Lara. “This crowdfunding campaign will bring that reality to life for our community.”
Talley hosts the TalleyTalk discussions every Saturday at 11am BST, and keeps the mental health peer-to-peer hotline open throughout the week from 6pm to 9pm.
For more information about Talley or to join the crowdfunding campaign, please visit www.talleyapp.com