1.
Sesame Street for Military Families
Helps children and families during deployments, reunions,
and crisis situations dealing with having a member in the military. This app provides a comprehensive tutorial in
the beginning. Then you can go through
the different sections, such as deployments that includes coping with
pre-deployment and actual deployment. It
provides videos from Sesame Street for the children to watch, which makes it
age appropriate, interesting, and informative.
It helps children to understand what is happening. There are also sections that require parental
grants to access, including injuries and grief.
Again these are child age-appropriate.
I highly recommend this for all military families with children, and
even is useful for families dealing with grief or injury.
2.
M3 depression check
This app appears to be based upon the Beck’s Depression
Inventory. It invites users to take the
3-minute screener and then tells then when they’re complete the severity of
what their depression could be. It is
only a screener so it cannot actually diagnose anyone with depression but may
give an individual some encouragement to seek professional help.
3.
ASK about suicide to save a life
This app is useful for anyone who may believe someone else
is having suicidal ideations. It
provides warning signs, crisis lines you can call, and a simple mini-training
on the “ASK” principle. It provides a
video tutorial and discussion. This is
useful for anyone in crisis or anyone who may have a friend or family member in
crisis. It does note when you open the
app to always call 9-1-1 if there is an emergency.
4.
Mr. Mood
Sometimes people think they’re in crisis if they’re having a
bad day. I know sometimes I worry that a
day is just the worse because everything has been great up to that point, and
then it feels like it comes crashing down.
I personally use this app every day and track my moods. It’s been helpful in noticing any patterns,
and you can add notes to your mood to remember why it was a good, okay, or bad
day. The faces are pretty
self-explanatory. Then a little bow-tie
pops up when you add a note. It gives
you an average of what your mood has been for the last week, 30 days, 60 days,
and 90 days as well.
5.
Disaster and Risk Reduction
I haven’t been able to test this app out as I have not
experienced any disasters since downloading it, however it could be very
beneficial. I think this could
particularly be beneficial in an area that experiences a lot of natural
disasters like earthquakes or hurricanes.
I also think it could be beneficial to get alerts of something going on
in an area in case you are not presently watching the news or have any contact
about a crisis occurring. This can be
beneficial for anyone as it alarms you when a crisis happens.
6.
Crisis Cope
This is an awesome coping strategy for anyone to use. If you regularly experience a crisis, you can
have it available to click on in this app, and then upload different items that
would improve your mood. You can show a
recorded video, play a voice message, show an image, show a camera photo, play
a song, call a contact, send a test message, or send an e-mail. These are great coping strategies for any
crisis, from simple to extreme.
7.
PTSD Coach
This app was developed for trauma survivors, whether they have
PTSD or are concerned that they might.
This is another coping strategy which includes contacts of loved ones,
pictures that are comforting or funny, and songs that are relaxing or put you
in a good mood. You can take an
assessment to assess possible PTSD. It
then tracks the assessments’ scores so you can see changes over time. It was produced by the VA and is therefore
made for veterans or active duty military, but can be appropriate for anyone
possibly experiencing PTSD. There is
also a distress meter that you can rate and also track changes over time.
8.
Crisis Corp.
This app helps you to create crisis plans. If you find yourself in a time of crisis, you
can then have a plan already in place that you already agreed upon to calm down
and gain control and stability. There
are some sample scenarios and plans available.
There is also a flashlight and an alarm available if you find yourself
in a dangerous situation and want to alarm the potential offender or to others
that you are in trouble.
9.
Suicide Lifeguard
This app provides helpful crisis line numbers, resources,
warning signs if you want to help someone in crisis, and the ability to call
9-1-1 through the app. Obviously I would
hope calling 9-1-1 would be more accessible than having to dial it through an
app, but it’s at least an alternative option.
It’s not the most informative app but free and useful nonetheless.
10.
Feeling Frenzy
This is a fun game for kids to play that allows
parents/guardians to help them open up about their feelings. It helps the kids to know what feelings are
positive and negative. You can make it
interactive by asking the child to explain if they feel that way or the last
time they did every time they hit a feeling, or to debrief afterwards. As the game goes on the levels get harder so
they’re bound to eventually hit a negative feeling and thus talk about it.
