Suicide Prevention Apps
Seeing a therapist or patient for one or two hours a week is not always a sufficient amount of time to affect change with someone struggling with mental health issues. Mobile apps give people and clinicians another option to interact and engage in activities to improve their condition.
These apps are intended to be supplemental resources to help people who may be at risk for suicide, but they are not meant to replace medical or mental-health advice.
“A Friend Asks” is a free smart-phone app that helps provide the information, tools and resources to help a friend (or yourself) who may be struggling with thoughts of suicide. Download the app today and encourage friends and family to do the same. Education is the key to prevention and with information like this as close as your smartphone; you could help save a life.
Operation Reach Out is part of MCA-D’s effort to provide timely and effective support and guidance for military families: Encourages people to reach out for help when they are having suicidal thoughts. Helps those who are concerned about family members, spouses, or fellow service members who may be suicidal. Provides a personal contact help center. Provides activities to help people who are depressed stay connected to others.
Suicide Safe is a suicide prevention learning tool for primary care and behavioral health providers and is based on the nationally recognized Suicide Assessment Five-step Evaluation and Triage (SAFE-T) practice guidelines. Suicide Safe helps providers feel confident to assist patients who present with suicidal ideation. The app offers tips on how to communicate effectively with patients and their families, determine appropriate next steps, and make referrals to treatment and community resources.
The Virtual Hope Box mobile application received the 2014 Department of Defense Innovation Award for its unique application of technology in supporting behavioral health in service members and military families. The Virtual Hope Box (VHB) is a smartphone application designed for use by patients and their behavioral health providers as an accessory to treatment. The VHB contains simple tools to help patients with coping, relaxation, distraction, and positive thinking.
If you are entertaining thoughts of committing suicide or if you know somebody who does, now is the time to stop thinking, whip out your Phone and open this app. This app may sway you to change your thoughts and have new found enthusiasm for life. Stay Alive is more than an app as it a suicide prevention resource that also features a life box where your most important memories in photos are stored, a safety plan, customizable reasons for living and more.
A suite of three Apps called Suicide Prevention Kit, designed to be the affordable help you need, when you need it, in the palm of your hand. Our goal is to provide ‘another option’ – for some this will be a chosen alternative to traditional service, in the first instance. For others SPK may be the only thing available due to remoteness or service shortfalls such as over nights or on weekends when suicidal crisis is common.
Regarding Apps & Privacy
When choosing an online therapy provider, we recommend that you read the company’s privacy guidelines before you sign up to better understand whether it is HIPAA-compliant and whether it shares any private information with third parties. Understand what user health information online therapy providers collect and what they do with that information.