In a move that signals a powerful shift in how behavioral health care is delivered, Spring Health, a leading digital mental health provider, has announced the launch of Community Care Solution—a program designed to directly address the social determinants of mental health that deeply affect an individual’s mental well-being.
By tackling barriers like food insecurity, unstable housing, lack of childcare, and other social stressors, Spring Health is taking a bold, necessary step toward ensuring mental health care is equitable, accessible, and holistic. This new offering will be made available through Spring Health’s growing network of employer and health plan partners, marking a major expansion of the company’s mission to create a world where mental health is not just treatable—but sustainably supported by the conditions in which people live.
The Vision Behind Community Care Solution
At the heart of this new program is a simple, yet powerful insight: mental health doesn’t exist in a vacuum. No amount of therapy, coaching, or medication can undo the damage caused by chronic stress related to not knowing where your next meal is coming from or whether you’ll have a safe place to sleep at night.
Spring Health’s new Community Care Solution is designed to help patients overcome these real-world barriers to mental wellness by connecting them to an extensive network of over 500,000 local community resources—right through its digital platform. These resources cover a wide range of needs, from housing and employment services to childcare support and access to nutritious food. The goal is to address the social determinants of mental health in a way that’s both scalable and personal.
“We believe we are one of the very few health innovations that deliver equitable health outcomes when we get people engaged in care,” said Robin Lloyd, Spring Health’s Chief Operating Officer. “This is about taking that next step to go find the members who aren’t making their way into the Spring Health experience … and making sure that we bring everybody into the experience, knowing that we can deliver clinical improvement and health equitably once they’re here.”
Making Mental Health Accessible at Scale
Spring Health, based in New York, is a B2B digital mental health platform that has gained traction for its ability to blend clinical precision with scalable access. Through its employer and health plan partnerships, it offers users access to therapy, coaching, psychiatric medication management, and now—through Community Care Solution—a much broader scope of support.
This announcement follows a period of notable growth for the company. In 2023, Spring Health raised $71 million in funding, bringing its valuation to $2.5 billion and signaling investor confidence in its approach to behavioral health. The company has also been actively expanding its portfolio of services:
- In late 2023, Spring partnered with Eleanor Health, a virtual provider focused on substance use disorder (SUD) treatment, to extend specialized addiction services to its members.
- Spring also teamed up with 2Morrow Health to add a smoking cessation program to its suite of offerings.
These partnerships reflect Spring’s ongoing evolution from a mental health platform to a full-spectrum behavioral health ecosystem—one that can meet the diverse needs of members at any stage in their mental health journey, while addressing the social determinants of mental health through intentional support infrastructure.
Meeting Patients Where They Are
For many people, especially those in underserved communities, clinical care can only be effective if basic needs are met first. A lack of housing, access to healthy food, or safe childcare can derail even the best mental health care plans.
Spring Health’s Community Care Solution is designed to identify and support individuals with unmet social needs—many of whom may otherwise fall through the cracks. By surfacing relevant local programs through its digital platform and working with partners to ensure seamless integration, Spring is doing more than extending care—it’s removing the roadblocks to it. These efforts directly contribute to improving the social determinants of mental health in a meaningful way.
“Even large technology companies have a large portion of their members who, at some point, may experience social needs,” said Lloyd. “These needs exist in almost every employee population.”
This statement gets to the heart of why addressing social determinants of mental health cannot be viewed as a niche concern. Whether a person is employed in a corporate tech role or working hourly shifts in a service industry, the stressors of real life impact mental health outcomes—and by extension, workplace performance, retention, and satisfaction.
Spring Health is helping employers recognize that the social determinants of mental health play a crucial role in the productivity and well-being of their teams. With rising demand for mental health solutions that go beyond the clinical, this focus on real-world stressors is both timely and transformative.
Aligning with a Broader Industry Shift
Spring Health’s initiative comes amid a growing recognition in the behavioral health world that social factors must be addressed alongside clinical care. Several health systems and providers have been exploring similar approaches.
Boston Medical Center (BMC), for instance, has taken a proactive stance on SDoH for years. Serving a population where 75% of patients come from underserved communities, BMC has launched several innovative programs—including a food pantry, community garden, and collaborative partnerships with local service providers—to meet patients where they are and connect them with resources beyond the hospital walls.
“What are those non-clinical things that really impact individuals’ behavioral health? To us, that’s focusing on social determinants of health,” said Deborah R. Goldfarb, Director of Behavioral Health at BMC. “We spent a lot of time and resources at BMC on that piece, and understanding things like housing and transportation, food insecurity, maybe involvement in the criminal legal system, education and employment. That really impacts behavioral health outcomes.”
This holistic framework—focusing on what Goldfarb calls the “social factors of behavioral health”—is now gaining momentum in the private sector as well, with Spring Health among the few digital-first providers at the forefront. By focusing on social determinants of mental health, Spring is helping to define a more compassionate and effective model of care.
Redefining Mental Health Through Equity and Innovation
With the launch of Community Care Solution, Spring Health is positioning itself as more than a mental health service provider. It is becoming a connector—one that links members not just to therapists or psychiatrists, but to the resources that allow those clinical interventions to work.
This innovation is particularly crucial in an era where mental health challenges continue to climb. Anxiety, depression, burnout, and substance use remain persistent across all demographics—but they often take a harsher toll on those grappling with socioeconomic instability.
Spring’s approach acknowledges this disparity and offers a blueprint for others in the industry: To achieve equitable outcomes, we must create equitable access—not just to care, but to the conditions that support it. That means putting deliberate focus on improving the social determinants of mental health as part of a standard care strategy.
Spring Health’s commitment to the social determinants of mental health marks a shift toward long-term recovery and true preventative care. Rather than waiting for a crisis to emerge, this model aims to reduce risk and promote wellness from the ground up.
Looking Ahead
Spring Health’s Community Care Solution is available now as an enhanced offering for employers and health plan partners, providing a new layer of support for members that’s long overdue.
As more organizations realize the deep connection between mental health and social factors, Spring’s integrated model may soon become a standard rather than an exception. The company’s leadership is betting on a future where behavioral health care is deeply rooted in the realities of everyday life, and where clinical success means nothing if it’s not backed by social stability.
And if Spring’s track record is any indication, that future might be closer than we think.
