Overview

BeHealth Today, a collaborative initiative developed by SDSU Social Policy Institute, Community Health Improvement Partners (CHIP), and The Idea Guy®, focused on addressing behavioral health challenges through innovative technology and community engagement. Leveraging the Innovation Funnel, a structured process designed to take ideas from inception to implementation, BeHealth empowered communities to develop actionable solutions. The program was executed three times across San Diego County—in the South, North, and Inland regions—to ensure diverse community participation and gather comprehensive data and insights. At the time of the program, San Diego County had an estimated population of approximately 3.3 million residents.

Problem

The BeHealth initiative addressed key issues facing San Diego County’s behavioral health landscape. These issues required innovative, community-driven solutions to close gaps in care and ensure meaningful impact. The primary problems included:

• Engaging diverse and underserved populations across San Diego County.
• Developing actionable proposals to address mental health needs using innovative technology.
• Creating a scalable framework for stakeholder engagement that could generate research-backed solutions.

Solution

The BeHealth program successfully implemented the Innovation Funnel, structured into four key stages:

LEARN

Each LEARN event served as an opportunity to share existing knowledge about critical issues in behavioral health while simultaneously collecting new insights from participants through creative activities. These collaborative exercises encouraged attendees to explore diverse perspectives and contribute their lived experiences, expanding the collective understanding of behavioral health challenges.

Outcome: Participants gained a deeper awareness of issues in behavioral health, creating a robust foundation for generating meaningful solutions.

WORK

During the WORK workshops, participants identified the problem statement from their unique perspectives—whether as a doctor, nurse, counselor, patient, family member, or teacher. This diversity of viewpoints helped uncover nuanced aspects of behavioral health challenges. Participants also received hands-on training in Design Thinking, learning how to translate their insights into actionable ideas. Each team developed prototypes to help the group better understand and evaluate their concepts.
The data from these workshops was used to select the most promising ideas to advance into the DEVELOP stage.

Outcome: Participants created prototypes, clarified problem statements, and provided the foundation for data-driven decision-making.

DEVELOP

In the DEVELOP stage, teams were coached to refine their problem statements and develop a comprehensive project plan. They were guided to execute each stage of the Design Thinking process, ensuring their solutions were robust and actionable. Resources were provided to help participants articulate their ideas and prepare professional presentations for further evaluation by the County for potential implementation.

Outcome: Teams produced polished, ready-to-implement proposals that aligned with MHSA requirements and addressed key behavioral health challenges.

PRESENT

In the PRESENT stage, teams showcased their ideas to the community during formal presentation sessions. These sessions provided a platform for community evaluation, where attendees offered feedback and engaged in discussions about the feasibility and potential impact of the proposed solutions. The data gathered from these presentations helped the County identify the ideas that had the greatest potential to improve behavioral health outcomes through the use of technology.

Outcome: Vetted, community-supported proposals were ready for further consideration and potential funding by the County.

Results

• Innovative Proposals: Participants created a repository of community-driven ideas addressing behavioral health challenges, prepared for funding and implementation.
• Community Empowerment: Engaged diverse stakeholders across North, South, and Inland regions, fostering meaningful contributions to mental health innovation.
• Expanded Knowledge Base: Creative activities during LEARN events broadened the understanding of behavioral health issues.
• Collaborative Prototyping: The WORK stage fostered teamwork and produced tangible prototypes, enabling robust evaluations.
• Refined Proposals: The DEVELOP stage produced professional-grade project plans ready for County evaluation and potential implementation.
• Community-Informed Evaluation: The PRESENT stage ensured that ideas were evaluated not only by experts but also by the community, strengthening their relevance and impact potential.

Takeaway

BeHealth Today demonstrates the power of the Innovation Funnel to drive collaboration, innovation, and strategic engagement in solving behavioral health challenges. By involving the community at every stage—from sharing knowledge in LEARN, generating prototypes in WORK, refining solutions in DEVELOP, to community evaluation in PRESENT—the program ensured that the most impactful ideas were identified for potential implementation. Engaging diverse communities across various regions, BeHealth created a scalable model for addressing mental health challenges and fostering sustainable solutions.