Our Crisis Response Protocol

1. What we are, and what we are not

We are not a crisis service, a helpline, or a replacement for a mental health professional. We do not monitor conversations in real time, and unless stated otherwise for a specific feature, we do not automatically alert emergency services, family members, or authorities when someone is in distress.

If you are in immediate physical danger, please contact local emergency services directly, or a crisis line, before or alongside using our platform.

2. What we do when acute distress becomes clear

Drawing on WHO's mental health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) principles for first-line psychological support, our approach is:

• •Stay present and steady. We do not end the interaction, deflect, or rush to close the conversation.
• •Do not probe for details that could deepen distress. The goal is stabilization, not investigation or diagnosis.
• •Offer relevant, region-appropriate crisis resources directly — without waiting to be asked, and encourage using them.
• •Never reinforce reluctance to seek help. We acknowledge feelings without validating avoidance of support.
• •Carry that awareness through the rest of the conversation, rather than treating it as a one-time checkbox.

3. The resources we point to

Consistent with how national systems are actually structured, we route people to the appropriate national service rather than a single global number:

• •India: Tele-MANAS — 14416 or 1-800-891-4416, free, 24/7, in over 20 languages, government-run (Ministry of Health & Family Welfare). Anonymous calling is supported.
• •United States: 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call, text, or chat, 24/7, in English and Spanish, run by SAMHSA through accredited local crisis centers.
• •Elsewhere: We point to Befrienders Worldwide or findahelpline.com to locate a local, accredited service, since coverage and languages vary widely by country.

We name the specific service rather than a generic “seek help” line, because a real, dialable number is what's actually useful in the moment.

4. Duty of care, honestly stated

India's Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 establishes a legal duty of care toward people in mental distress and decriminalizes suicide attempts — the person seeking help is never treated as an offender. We hold ourselves to that same spirit: nobody using our platform in a moment of crisis is judged, penalized, or shamed for it.

At the same time, we do not overstate what our duty of care can mechanically deliver. We are a text-based (or app-based) tool. We cannot:

• • verify someone's real-time location or physical safety,
• • guarantee a human will intervene,
• • promise confidentiality with the same legal footing as a licensed clinician or a monitored crisis line.

We would rather tell you this plainly than let anyone assume more protection than actually exists.

5. Privacy during a crisis conversation

Distress-related conversations are handled with the same data protections as the rest of the platform — we do not create special surveillance flags, share crisis-related content with third parties, or use it for anything beyond providing the support described above, consistent with India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act and equivalent global privacy norms. If our policies ever require an exception (for example, a legal obligation), that will be disclosed separately in our privacy policy, not buried here.

6. What we ask of you

If you're in a crisis right now, please use one of the numbers above, or go to your nearest emergency service. We built this platform to be a steady presence — not a substitute for the people and services who can actually be there with you.