Soluna tells Senate panel its youth digital mental‑health service reached 160,000 users in California and showed early reductions in distress

Dr. Tanya, a presenter for Soluna, told the Senate Health and Welfare committee on March 24 that the company’s digital mental‑health service for young people combines self‑help resources, a pre‑moderated peer community, one‑to‑one coaching and counseling, and referrals to local services.

"Soluna is a digital mental health service. It is not an app," Dr. Tanya said, adding the platform is accessible via any internet‑enabled device and designed to offer flexible engagement — drop‑in coaching or scheduled appointments — to fit youth routines.

On moderation and safety, she said Soluna pre‑moderates community posts by human reviewers before content goes live to prevent exposure to harmful material, and the platform does not allow private one‑to‑one messaging between users.

In response to committee questions about access, Dr. Tanya said Soluna guarantees matching a drop‑in user with the next available coach within 15 minutes and reported that, under a 2025 California contract serving more than 160,000 youth, the average wait time was about three minutes. She characterized the 15‑minute guarantee and the three‑minute average as targets met in that contract.

Dr. Tanya described provider composition: roughly half of coaches are certified peer support specialists (individuals with lived experience who have state certification), supplemented by other certified coaches and licensed counselors. She said coaches are supervised and that users can mix drop‑in coaching with scheduled counseling.

On funding, Dr. Tanya said Soluna typically contracts with government agencies so the service is free to users; she said California funded the service with general fund dollars in that state’s implementation and New Jersey used a similar mechanism. She noted the form of payment and regulatory arrangements vary by state and would require follow‑up work.

On outcomes, Dr. Tanya cited deployment and usage data from California: the platform is active in all 58 counties, has more than 160,000 youth accounts, and has delivered over 57,000 coaching chats. She said about half of users reported that Soluna was their first access to mental‑health services, and she reported several satisfaction metrics (for example, that 98% of surveyed young people would recommend Soluna).

Dr. Tanya also cited an independent evaluation she said was led by Northwestern University’s digital‑mental‑health lab (Dr. Jessica Schleider). She said the team measured psychological distress at baseline, one month and three months and found statistically significant reductions at one month that were sustained at three months; she added that more clinical outcome work remains to be done.

The committee did not take any formal action on Soluna during this session. The presenter provided slides and testimony that the committee said would be posted on its webpage.

Note on figures: several of the presenter’s figures were described as estimates or summaries of contract performance (for example, the presenter described the "back‑of‑the‑napkin" estimate that Soluna’s two‑year California deployment opened access for roughly 80,000 youth who otherwise lacked prior services); where statements were characterized by Dr. Tanya as internal or contract metrics, the article attributes them to her testimony and notes follow‑up and verification would be needed to confirm programwide generalizability.