Fireside Chat: Featuring Grant Riewe, CTO at Vibrant Emotional Health

With the We the Resilient conference approaching, Vibrant’s CTO, Grant Riewe, recently sat down with SuccessKPI’s CEO Dave Rennyson to discuss how executives can lead from the front with mental health initiatives, and more.  

We the Resilient Conference 

Vibrant’s We the Resilient Conference takes place in Nashville October 1st through 3rd this year and aims to empower individuals, organizations, and communities that support people affected by disaster. 

It will feature workshops, expert panels, and collaborative sessions, all focused on sharing the best practices and experiences Vibrant has learned through its work. 

Riewe said to think about it like a barn raising—a community function where everyone is learning how to raise the barn together. 

“The challenges that we face are increasing the frequency of disasters—be it climate issues, be it massive violence,” Riewe said. “There are more and more frequent needs for communities to support communities…we’re just doing it at a national scale for the particular work that we’re doing here in disaster support.” 

Prioritizing Security and Privacy  

Another focus of the conference is how technology can play a role in building resiliency within communities. 

“Technology affords us a lot of opportunities to be connected in new and different ways,” Riewe said. “Disaster responses happen faster these days because of technology. Everybody can get on their mobile device and get connected with support here.” 

When disasters do hit, Riewe stressed the need to ensure communal-focused technology meant to help does so while also prioritizing security and privacy. 

“One of the things that happens frequently in a crisis scenario is that people are pushed to the edge and they need support and they are going to have to share personal information, which they would never normally do, but in broad social channels because that’s the only way that they can get access to help in that moment,” Riewe said. 

Prioritizing security and privacy ensures the focus can stay on helping people without worrying about their information or data being breached. 

Crisis Management and AI 

Like most of the world, mental health organizations are searching for ways AI can be implemented to help. 

Riewe said he believes AI can help in several ways—the first being predicting where support is needed so Vibrant can relocate its team during disasters. 

“There’s always a conversation happening or there are always events that are public like a hurricane,” he said. “I can use [AI] as a predictive tool. If I see that hurricane season is looking more intense, I can temporarily relocate people from the northwest United States into the southeast United States.” 

He said they also use AI to understand the demand needed for a disastrous event. 

“We’ll use a form of AI called topic modeling to actually look at conversations that are happening in the public sphere and understand what might be occurring,” he said. 

Riewe said there is also potential to use AI to coach a crisis counselor, but with caution. 

“I say a potential future there because that crisis interaction, that therapeutic, that clinical interaction is highly nuanced between the two individuals,” he said. “And most AI solutions are built as a one-size-fits-all, one-culture-fits-all, and that’s certainly not true in mental health, right?”  

He said that nuance especially needs to be present to navigate identities during a crisis. 

“There’s much more nuance there around race and ethnic and gender and culture identity that express themselves in those conversations,” he said. “So we can’t put a chat bot out there that’s not going to work, but we can look at the structure of conversations there.” 

The last way he thinks AI can be used within organizations such as Vibrant is with generative tools that consume all the resources that are available and provide people access to them in more fluent ways. 

“The ecosystem of mental healthcare providers is massive and ever changing. For me to know all of those things, or even a nonprofit in a community that lives there to know everything that’s ebbing and flowing is very difficult,” he said. “So thinking about generative solutions that can help guide people, I’m pretty excited about.”  

He believes this will require a lot of coordination but is on the cusp of happening on a national level. 

 Leading From the Front to Create Safe Spaces  

When it comes to mental health struggles, Riewe said he believes they are not just personal life issues—they are life issues. 

That’s why it’s important to him to share his experience and own journey—to ensure others feel comfortable coming forward if they are struggling. 

“You are going to bring it to work no matter what, so we need to find ways to support everyone,” he said. “Even in my organization, which is focused on mental health and crisis mental health, at that, I have had multiple colleagues experience crisis events and still not feel like they could reach out for help. Our work here will never be done, but we have to lead from the front.” 

Learn more about Vibrant’s We the Resilient conference here: https://vibrantdbhcon.org/