People living in regional and rural communities often face unique challenges that can affect emotional wellbeing. These challenges include natural disasters, accidents, economic pressures, community trauma, and limited access to mental health support. Finding practical ways to manage emotions and maintain wellbeing is important, but support options can sometimes be hard to access.
The SOLAR program is an evidence-based program designed to teach practical skills for coping with life’s ups and downs and improving emotional wellbeing. The program focuses on strategies that can help people feel more in control, manage strong emotions, and build resilience. The SOLAR program has been shown in previous research to help reduce symptoms of depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder.
To make these skills more accessible, SOLAR has now been adapted into a smartphone application, called SOLAR-R, and tailored for regional, rural, and remote Australian communities. This means people can learn and practice these techniques anytime, anywhere, using their own device.
In this project, we are testing two versions of the SOLAR-R app to learn which version works best for supporting wellbeing in Australian regional and rural communities. Both versions aim to help people build skills for managing emotions and improving mental health. By taking part, you’ll be helping us understand how to make these tools as effective and useful as possible for people living in rural and regional areas.
