SPARX – Online e-therapy for Youth Mental Health

[Debra Clark]

SPARX is an online e-therapy tool provided by the University of Auckland, as an initiative of the
Prime Minister’s Youth Mental Health Project.

SPARX is now available to help young people learn skills to deal with feeling down, depressed
or stressed. The effectiveness of SPARX has been proven to be as good as standard care in a
randomised control trial undertaken by the University of Auckland.

o Designed for 12 – 19 year olds
o Visit website at: https://www.sparx.org.nz/

RCT study – SPARX was tested in a large study in New Zealand and the results were published in
the British Medical Journal in 2012. In addition, three doctoral projects evaluated SPARX with specific
groups of young people.