Vibrant Emotional Health provides secure access for crisis counselors and employees with Okta

One in five American adults experiences some form of emotional or mental illness every year. Vibrant Emotional Health brings a technological and innovative approach to providing critical access to mental and emotional care and support. Since 1969, the nonprofit has grown from providing community-based programs to offering warm lines, lifelines such as the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, and an internal crisis contact center to help people receive immediate care. Annually, Vibrant Emotional Health helps millions of people across voice, video, chat, and text.

“There’s been a massive increase in the need for mental health care in recent years. We need to treat all of these interactions as confidential and anonymous to protect the sensitive data that help seekers share with us in a moment of crisis,” says Grant Riewe, Chief Technology Officer at Vibrant Emotional Health. “That led us to evaluate our cybersecurity situation, particularly how we manage access to our secure systems and confirm the identity of those providing support.”

Previously, the nonprofit used four disparate Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions, which made it challenging to verify employee and volunteer identities, maintain compliance with industry standards, and secure help seekers’ personal details. This fragmented data also led to poor reporting, delays in onboarding new staff, and issues with deprovisioning. To overcome these challenges, the team searched for a partner to centralize their IAM functions with more secure and compliant tools.

Choosing the right provider to support the mental health mission

Several key Vibrant Emotional Health team members had prior experience working with Okta, so Okta’s IAM solutions were at the forefront of the nonprofit’s selection process. “Our services are critical on the same scale as 911 services. It's incumbent upon us to treat security, identity, and access protection seriously,” says Riewe. “This requires great partnerships with technology providers to ensure the security and safety of all the data in our care.”

The team knew Okta could help the organization manage their complex Identity needs and help amplify the impact of their critical work. That’s when the team turned to Okta for Good, a program that helps nonprofits of all sizes access crucial technologies, training, and personalized support so they can focus on their mission.

“Nonprofits only get so much funding, so cybersecurity often becomes an afterthought. This makes nonprofits especially vulnerable,” says Jim McMicken, Director of Cybersecurity at Vibrant Emotional Health. “The more we spend on technology, the less we can do to provide actual support to help seekers. Having partnerships like Okta for Good enables us to protect our users, their data, and our systems while focusing our funding where it's needed most.”

Additionally, Okta shares Vibrant Emotional Health’s passion for protecting the sensitive data of those accessing mental health care. With implementation partner Accenture, Okta was the right choice to support the nonprofit’s mission with proven, secure, and scalable solutions.

Securing access for crisis counselors on a national scale

Vibrant Emotional Health began their journey with Okta by implementing Okta Customer Identity Solution (CIS) in 2022 to support the launch of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. This lifeline replaced long 1-800 numbers that were difficult to remember—especially in moments of great need—with a simple, direct line to crisis counselors nationwide.

“We needed to enable all of our crisis counselors to log in securely, and we needed it fast,” Riewe recalls. “We first launched CIS in a few call centers and quickly saw that Okta could grow to support all our IAM needs.”

CIS facilitates secure, seamless access for over 4,000 volunteers and crisis counselors to the applications they need to provide urgent care across 90 national call centers. This means counselors don’t have to wait weeks to get an account and begin helping seekers — they get immediate access to the communication tools they need.

“We provide the entry point for the mental, emotional, and behavioral health ecosystem. With Okta, we can empower crisis counselors to engage beyond the front door with trusted Identity solutions,” Riewe says. All of Vibrant Emotional Health’s teams, counselors, and staff also use Okta Multi-Factor Authentication to further secure and protect against unauthorized access and ensure the security of their critical data.

Unifying IAM across the Vibrant Emotional Health Ecosystem

After seeing CIS's value to crisis counselors across call centers, Vibrant Emotional Health wanted to extend the same security standards and user experience to their internal employees. With Okta Workforce Identity Cloud (WIC), the organization has automated the entire IAM lifecycle for over 1,000 team members.

Okta Lifecycle Management has streamlined Vibrant Emotional Health’s Identity processes, specifically through onboarding. With features like Single Sign-On, WIC enables Vibrant Emotional Health to provide day-one access across all applications, significantly reducing help desk tickets related to accessing accounts. Employees no longer have to worry about remembering multiple credentials for various applications — Okta handles everything, so they can simply log in through one set of credentials. Meanwhile, Okta Privileged Access provides additional protection, such as automatic password resets. 

Okta Identity Governance automates offboarding in the same way by right-sizing access when employees change roles or leave the company. “If someone leaves the company, we don’t have to hunt down everything they had access to,” says McMicken. “Okta gives us a 360-degree view and deactivates the account immediately.”

Vibrant Emotional Health must also maintain compliance with HIPAA regulations and meet contractual requirements with partners, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, all of which require regular access reviews. Before Okta, a governance risk manager would have to manually track down a full list of accounts, identify who was still with the organization, and determine who had access to what. Now, Okta provides a complete list of users and validates that everyone has the correct privilege level.

Similarly, the organization must pass annual security audits at the city, state, and federal level. This tedious, manual undertaking is now automated with Okta. McMicken adds, “Access reviews and security audits are a breeze now.”

The future of security in mental and emotional health

Vibrant Emotional Health is transforming their industry by using Identity and technology to achieve their mission. Since implementing Okta, the nonprofit has saved $65k per year in password resets, $19k in costs managing multiple domains, $25.5k in manual IT processes with provisioning, and $16k in synchronizing user records.

“We looked for products that would automate onboarding and offboarding, centralize access across all applications, and provide built-in compliance with industry regulations,” says Mable Woodson, Identity Access Manager. “Okta fills all of those needs and limits a significant volume of manual work for our team.”

Next, Vibrant Emotional Health plans to dive deeper into the data to unearth critical trends and provide better care. “While all help seeker data is anonymous, Okta gives us access to aggregate data that helps us understand themes of what’s happening in this country with respect to mental, emotional, and behavioral health,” Riewe says. “Okta will be a key part of our future as we launch new digital products to support other communities and nonprofits who also wish to provide access to care.”

About Vibrant Emotional Health

Vibrant Emotional Health provides people with emotional support and care when, where, and how they need it. The nonprofit runs innovative community programs for people at all stages of life and state-of-the-art crisis lines like the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.