UT Shield

Telephone Calls for Mental Health

Join us (or we’ll join you) to leverage this proven protocol for an empathy-oriented telephone based program that meaningfully improves loneliness, depression and anxiety.  For community-based organizations, toolkit coming soon.  For health plans and providers, we want to work with you to understand how to make this work for at-risk populations that could benefit. Either way, get in touch.

Program and Results
As reported in: AMA  |  CNN  |  Forbes |  Medline/Reuters Health  |  Scientific American  |  Axios |  NYT |  More

  • Results of a 240-person randomized controlled trial (Feb 23rd 2021, peer-reviewed publication, JAMA Psychiatry)
  • Approach and significance described in interview (Mar 8th 2021, 3 minute video, Scripps TV)
  • Program described, with example caller/participant interaction (Jan 2021, 5 minute audio, KUT Austin 90.5)
  • Reflection by researcher, Maria Cowley-Morillo, who talked to participants to survey their feelings before and after the program. (Oct 2020, blog post, Dell Med News)

Learning Together

  • How a wooden bench in Zimbabwe is starting a revolution in mental health by Alex Riley. From Mosaic.

Local Resources

For more in Austin, get in touch with Meals on Wheels of Central Texas (MOWCTX).  We are working with them to support their inclusion of our learning into their Care Calls program.

  • Contact MOWCTX if you’re interested in volunteering.
  • Call Meals on Wheels main phone line at 512-476-MEAL (512-476-6325) if you’re interested in becoming a client.

Join us to scale the Sunshine Calls program for communities you serve.  Contact us if you are:

  • A community-based organization that is already running a phone calls program for adults*
  • A policy focused organization that wants to support payment reform to pay for what matters.
  • An organization that wants to partner to measure or create together with us
  • A funder interested in supporting scaling this work
  • A health insurance company or a self-insured employer interested in paying for results in mental health.

*If you’re a community-based organization that is already running a phone calls program for adults, we’d love to share our approach with you to use as you see fit. We can’t guarantee results without all the components we used in following our protocol, but there may be aspects you can pick up and implement straight away that are likely to increase effectiveness of your initiative. We’d love to help. Get in touch. 

Sunshine Calls is just one of the programs we’re testing. Learn more about the Factor Health platform.