The BRITE app is a smartphone application designed to help adolescents who are dealing with difficult emotions or distress, including thoughts about self-harm or suicide. It is based on the principle of coping planning, a standard approach in mental health care. Coping planning involves developing a personalized plan outlining strategies and actions to manage distress and intense feelings, access support systems, and help adolescents who are dealing with difficult emotions or distress, including thoughts about self-harm or suicide.

First, your adolescent will be guided to create a personalized coping plan. Then, they will download the BRITE app which will include this plan automatically. The BRITE app will teach them about personalized coping strategies, ask them to rate their distress every day, and remind them to practice the coping strategies, especially if they are feeling more distressed.

BRITE is just for adolescents and young adults who are at risk of suicide. Suicidal risk is determined by your child’s doctor. It is important to know that many young people have thoughts about suicide, but the majority do not try to end their life or die by suicide. Nonetheless, these thoughts themselves can be upsetting. The app is only for adolescents to use to help them monitor and manage intense emotions. You and your adolescent’s doctor will not see what your adolescent enters in the BRITE app.

Currently, there is not a tool for parents or doctors to see whether or not the teen is using BRITE. Keep in mind that this app is still being tested in clinical trials, so this may change based upon more testing and may be addressed later. For now, we encourage you to talk to your child about whether they find the BRITE app helpful, and encourage them to use it, especially in moments of distress.

Your child will see this language when they download the app: “The BRITE app is just for you. Your mom or dad or guardian and your doctor will not see what you do in the BRITE app. If you are feeling bad, sad, or overwhelmed, or the activities in the app to help you feel better are not working for you, reach out to an adult you trust or call/text 988.”

Parents have an important role to play. Along with your teen's doctor, you will receive a copy of the coping plan, and help to review it, make suggestions, and remind the teen to use their plan, especially in moments of distress. It can be normal for parents and teens to disagree. If you feel this disagreement is leading to difficult emotions for your teen, we suggest taking a pause in your conversation and reminding the teen they can use the skills available in the BRITE app. 

One of the most important roles a parent can play is ensuring that their teen’s environment is as safe as possible. Reducing access to lethal means, such as firearms and medications, is a critical step in suicide prevention. We encourage parents to use resources like Lock2Live, a free, confidential tool designed to help families make decisions about safely storing potential lethal means in households. Taking these proactive steps can create a safer space for your teen while they navigate their mental health journey. We also encourage parents to access the resources below to learn more about how to support teens.

Your adolescent will initially create a coping plan and review it with you and your child’s doctor. After, your adolescent will get the BRITE app that will have their coping plan and will be able to personalize the plan within the app including user-added content like videos, links, and pictures. The app has a feature that allows them to schedule push-notification reminders to use the app to monitor their distress level and to practice using the coping activities practice coping skills.

The BRITE app has been shown to be effective in reducing suicidal thoughts and behaviors in adolescents, especially for adolescents at high-risk for suicide. One study found that adolescents who used BRITE had a lower rate of suicide attempts than those who did not use the app. Another study found that those who used the BRITE app more frequently experienced a greater increase in reasons for living [2,3,4].

The BRITE app is not yet publicly available. It is currently being tested in multiple clinical trials. Information about commercial availability may be released later.

The BRITE app has been developed with adolescents’ safety in mind. The BRITE app is intended to be used as one part of a comprehensive prevention plan that includes mental health treatment. The app does not have a way for adolescents to interact with others who are also using the app. It is important to talk to your child’s doctor if you have any concerns about using the BRITE app. The app has been designed to minimize impact on the user's phone performance and data is encrypted.

The BRITE app is designed to protect your privacy. Data is transferred to a secure cloud service using encryption. However, no technology is completely risk-free. For example, there is always a risk that data could be lost, stolen, or that there could be a breach of confidentiality.

See BRITE’s Privacy Policy

Multiple trials of the BRITE app have been funded by reputable organizations, such as the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), and through Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants.

Quotes from past participants include:

• “I really liked how you check in with yourself. Your temperature’s rising and you don’t even know it…I started doing it without even the app, it became natural to me.”

• “I’ve used guided imagery…It’s really helpful for me when I can’t sleep or having a panic attack. It calms me down a lot.”

• “There’s a lot of diversity in the app, which is helpful, because people’s moods fluctuate!”

• “It just helped me to focus on the good things, especially when I felt a little bit suicidal and I wasn’t really focusing on things that made me happy. Good things, the people in my life and my goals to become a nurse and help people”

• “[BRITE] was helpful, because it reminded you when you’re in the moment you don’t really think of that stuff. You can look on there and remind yourself that you can still be here.”