My name is Simran, and I am a Grade 12 Student and co-applicant on a research project that explores how artificial intelligence can enhance youth mental health support. Growing up during a global pandemic, alongside the constant presence of social media and rapid expansion of AI, I have witnessed how these influences have reshaped how my generation experiences stress, anxiety, and access to support. These shifts have intensified mental health challenges while simultaneously transforming how we seek help, understanding, and reassurance. As mental health needs increase, I believe it is essential that the tools designed to support us evolve accordingly. Through working with Kids Help Phone (KHP), I have witnessed how research plays a critical role in ensuring that mental health care is not only evidence-based, but also responsive to real-world youth experiences.

Our research project is titled One Session, Infinite Support: Leveraging Generative AI for Delivering Effective Single-Session Crisis Support and Counselling for Youth with Anxiety and Depression. Funded through Mental Health x AI, this project is carried out by researchers, clinicians, frontline staff, and youth advisors like me through a partnership between KHP and Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU).

KHP is Canada’s only free, national, 24/7, multilingual, and confidential emental health service for young people. Through services such as counselling and textbased support, KHP helps youth Feel Out Loud by openly expressing any feeling they may have. KHP is continually evolving by blending data, innovation, and technology with human connection and clinical expertise, and by partnering with organizations such as TMU to strengthen and expand this work.

The research I am involved in explores how generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) can enhance crisis support by helping to train frontline responders who work with young people in moments of distress. The project is developing an AI-supported training chatbot that simulates youth in crisis so frontline responders can practice their responses, align with quality standards, and build confidence for real-world situations. 

Since the chatbot is designed to reflect how youth communicate in moments of distress, youth voice and perspective are essential for its design and evaluation. The technology is intended to mirror how young people express themselves during distress, ensuring that support is responsive and meaningful. Using Kids Help Phone’s datasets and youthinformed focus groups, the project aims to develop tools that are not only clinically sound, but also practically usable and sensitive to the emotional realities of youth in crisis.

This project is distinctive in that youth with lived experience are actively involved in the entire research process, rather than only at the final stages. As a youth advisor, my role draws on both lived experience and my involvement in youth mental health advocacy. 

I currently serve as a Mental Health Ambassador with the York Catholic District School Board and volunteer with KHP. Through these roles, I have observed recurring patterns in how young people seek help, the barriers they encounter, and the types of language and tone that influence whether they feel supported or dismissed.

I focus on providing feedback on tone, word choice, accessibility, and cultural sensitivity in the AI-supported training tools being developed for crisis responders. I help identify language that may feel outdated or unresponsive to current youth communication styles and suggest changes that reflect the real needs of youth today. One key insight I have gained is that the smallest details matter; a single word, pause, or shift in tone can determine whether a young person feels genuinely understood or shuts down. This feedback ensures that the training tool reflects the emotional complexity of real-world conversation with youth rather than presenting overly simplified scenarios.

Youth-centered research is essential because young people are too often dismissed, with mental health tools designed for them without meaningful involvement. When tools are developed without youth input, even well-intentioned interventions risk being ineffective. By involving youth as partners throughout the research process, projects like this build trust, credibility, and relevance. They acknowledge that young people are experts in their own experiences, and that our insights are vital to creating effective, culturally sensitive, and accessible mental health support.

So far, the project has completed a pilot phase including focus groups with clinical experts, crisis responders, and youth volunteers with lived experience. These discussions have generated insights into frontline challenges and opportunities for AI-enabled training to strengthen consistency, confidence, and compassion in crisis response.

As the project continues, my role will remain focused on ensuring that youth perspectives continue to shape how technology evolves. I view this work as more than advancing innovation in mental health care, it is also strengthening the quality of support available to young people during moments of crisis. By centering youth voices in research and design, the project aims to ensure that even single-session support can feel informed, responsive, and genuinely human.

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