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Kooth PLC said on Thursday it won a deal with the California Department of Health Care Services to deliver its digital mental well-being platform to a government behavioural health initiative. Shares in Kooth jumped 37% to 235.00 pence on Thursday midday in London. The London-based digital mental health platform said it was selected to deliver its online well-being services for children and young adults as part of the ‘Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health’, and the ‘Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative’ programmes. The deal forms part of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s planned $4.7 billion investment in youth behavioural health. Kooth is unable to disclose the value or length of the contract as terms are yet to be finalised. Kooth said that more than 284,000 young people in California suffer from depression, with 66% of those cases going untreated. There is also an increasing suicide rate in children between 10 and 18 in the state, with a 20% increase between 2019 and 2020. As part of the contract, the company will work with the DHCS and Californian children and teens to extend Kooth’s existing platform to ‘provide a welcoming, safe, and stigma-free space for behavioral health support, in multiple languages, with no waiting lists, qualifying criteria, or cost to end users.’ Chief Executive Officer of Kooth said: ‘This contract has the opportunity to be a step change in both our work in the US and indeed more broadly as we continue to grow and scale our user base to help ever more people.’ Copyright 2023 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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