Research project
Engineering a Family e-Hub: Improving Service Accessibility for Families Experiencing Distress
Research conducted through a PhD program
Who is this research most relevant to?
- family therapy and systemic practice clinicians
- policy-makers
- program developers
- organisations
- families
Contact for further information
Overview
The Family e‑Hub was developed through a dedicated PhD research program that set out to address a significant gap in mental health support for families. While decades of research show that family‑inclusive and systemic approaches can improve outcomes for many mental health conditions, access to family therapy is often limited by long wait times and service availability. At the same time, digital mental health tools have expanded access for individuals, but prior to this research, there were no evidence‑based digital interventions designed specifically for families or grounded in family therapy practice. The PhD was initiated to explore whether it was possible to translate the core principles of systemic family therapy into a safe, engaging, and accessible digital format that families could use together.
To achieve this, the research program followed a rigorous, participatory co‑design approach that moved through several stages, from identifying the evidence gap, to establishing key design principles, and then testing and refining ideas through co‑design workshops.
Families with lived experience, family therapists, First Nations practitioners, and digital mental health professionals were involved across multiple phases of the research to shape how the Family e-Hub works. This included identifying how families engage online, how shared activities can be completed together, and how to ensure choice, safety, and inclusion across diverse family structures and cultures. The result is a self‑guided, evidence‑informed digital resource built specifically for families — one that focuses on relationships, shared understanding, and connection, and brings the foundations of systemic family therapy into an online environment for the first time.
Excitingly, the Victorian Department of Health has provided seed funding to implement Phase 1 of the Family e-Hub, launching in October 2026. If you are interested in supporting further development of the Family e-Hub, find out more here.
Key research highlights
- Identified a critical gap in digital mental health
Found no existing digital interventions designed for families or grounded in systemic family therapy. - Established the need for family‑specific digital design
Demonstrated that systemic, relationship‑focused therapies require fundamentally different digital design approaches to individual mental health tools. - Developed evidence‑based design principles for families
Generated and validated key principles to support safe, engaging, and accessible digital use by multiple family members. - Co‑designed the Family e‑Hub with families and practitioners
Used participatory co‑design to translate theory and evidence into practical, family‑centred digital functionality.
Research publications and shared knowledge
Welsh E.T., McIntosh J.E., Vuong A, Cloud Z.C.G., Hartley E., Boyd J.H. (2024). Design of Digital Mental Health Platforms for Family Member Cocompletion: Scoping Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 26:e49431. DOI: 10.2196/49431 https://www.jmir.org/2024/1/e49431/
Welsh, E.T., Cloud, Z.C.G., Boyd, J.H. and McIntosh, J.E. (2025), Essential Design Principles for a Family Digital Mental Health Intervention: A Delphi Study. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 51: e70045. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.70045
Research project team
The Bouverie Centre, La Trobe University
Digital Health Information Management, La Trobe University