Case study

Embedding Quality, Inclusivity, and Credibility Through the MHCC App Assessment

Sector:

Digital Healthcare Supplier
(Mental Health)

Challenge:

Independently validating quality, safety, accessibility, and inclusivity of a digital mental health platform

Solution:

Delivery partner for MHCC digital mental health app assessment

The client

Strongest Families Institute: Canadian charity delivering child and family mental health interventions

Strongest Families Institute delivers evidence-based mental health interventions to children and families across Canada, grounded in more than 25 years of social science research. As a charity that owns and operates its own digital platform, maintaining trust, safety, and credibility is mission-critical.

The challenge

While Strongest Families had extensive clinical evidence and long-standing co-design practices, the organisation faced several challenges as its digital services evolved:

Demonstrating app-level quality and safety beyond traditional research credentials

Ensuring accessibility and inclusivity across diverse populations

Managing quality improvement within tight resource constraints typical of non-profit organisations

Keeping pace with evolving expectations around digital standards, privacy, and usability

For Strongest Families, the question was not whether quality mattered, but how to independently validate it in a rapidly changing digital environment.

As a charity that owns and operates its own technology, credibility is critical. We couldn’t afford not to go through the MHCC assessment. The assessment wasn’t just about certification. It became a comprehensive roadmap that helped our team identify where we could strengthen safety, inclusivity, and accessibility.

Dr. Patricia Lingley-Pottie

Co-founder, CEO & President, Strongest Families Institute and IRIS

The solution

Strongest Families undertook the MHCC digital mental health app assessment, delivered in partnership with ORCHA, recognising the importance of external validation and continuous improvement.

The assessment evaluated the organisation’s digital platform across a comprehensive framework, including:

Privacy, data governance, and safety

Clinical evidence and effectiveness

Accessibility, inclusivity, and usability, with a strong emphasis on lived and living experience

The outcome

The process highlighted areas of strength while also identifying practical opportunities for improvement. One example was accessibility: while Strongest Families already used demonstration videos extensively, the assessment identified the need for closed captioning to better support diverse users.

To respond, the organisation secured additional funding and implemented improvements, embedding accessibility more deeply into its digital offering.

For Strongest Families, the assessment was not just a certification milestone, but a strategic investment. It reinforced trust, strengthened internal development practices, and ensured the organisation’s digital services continue to meet the highest standards of safety, inclusivity, and effectiveness.

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Key impacts included:

Enhanced credibility, with the MHCC badge now featured in government and funder presentations

A clear roadmap for ongoing quality improvement, used by development teams beyond the initial assessment

Improved accessibility and inclusivity, strengthening the user experience for children and families

Greater confidence and trust among partners and funders, supporting future scaling opportunities

Provides national validation that SFI’s App meets Canada’s highest standards for safety, privacy, evidence, accessibility and usability

The MHCC badge adds instant credibility in conversations with government and funders, and our team now uses the framework continuously to guide how we develop.