SafeUT app annual report shows lives saved, crises averted

For the first time since the SafeUT app was created almost a decade ago, bullying topped the list of tips that were reported. In the past, tips related to suicide were the most common.
In all, there were 2,288 K-12 tips related to bullying and 1,963 related to suicide. The suicide-related numbers didn’t drop from the previous year in fiscal year 2024; bullying tips surged, more than doubling from the previous year, Rachel K. Lucynski, director of Community Crisis Services at Huntsman Mental Health Institute, told Deseret News this week in conjunction with release of SafeUT’s 2024 annual report.
The institute’s mental health experts operate a number of suicide prevention and crisis intervention programs, man the statewide 988 crisis line and staff mobile crisis outreach teams, among other mental health-related programs.
“The number related to suicide that was reported is also up from last year, so it’s a big jump for suicide tips to have increased, but bullying tips to have increased even more,” she said. She noted bullying and suicidal thoughts and actions aren’t strangers to each other: Someone experiencing bullying may have increased levels of thoughts of self-harm. Bullying can also make people more aggrieved and prompt thoughts of fighting back in harmful ways.
Suicide is still the leading cause of death in Utah for those 10 to 24 years old, Lucynski said, but efforts like SafeUT have made some inroads. For a time, the Beehive State was No. 5 for suicides per capita among young people, but Utah now ranks No. 14. “We’ve made really incredible strides and improvements, but I think people just have really been struggling in our state and there’re a lot of potential reasons why.”
The list of suspected factors is broad and diverse, ranging from genetics to social and societal factors; even elevation could play a role, she said. While it’s hard to pin down causes, which vary and are seldom limited to just one, legislators began working on creating the SafeUT app back in 2014 to reduce the toll, driven by the notion, per Lucynski, “that we can’t continue losing our youth and the most vulnerable among us to suicide when we know suicide is preventable.”
The SafeUT app has three separate focuses. First, it’s a resource for someone who is struggling with mental health, bullying or others issues and who needs support. Second, it’s a place where people can safely and anonymously report concerns, such as someone threatening to hurt others or oneself.
SafeUT provides people in crisis with the ability to reach trained counselors who can provide short-term crisis intervention, both anonymously and around the clock. And it’s not just for students, but for parents, guardians, teachers and school staff, too.
Two other versions of SafeUT have been added: SafeUT National Guard launched in 2019 for Utah Air and Army National Guard members, their families, veterans and civilian personnel. The next year, SafeUT Frontline was added for health care providers, law enforcement, corrections, fire/EMS and their families.
What crisis looks like is different from one person to the next, she told the Deseret News. “Anything in life that’s stressful, that’s overwhelming, that exceeds your natural ability to cope with the situation on your own, that’s a crisis,” she said. “That’s where you might need help.” For students, it could be bullying or test anxiety or parents divorcing or moving to a new school. It could also be thoughts of self-harm. The folks who answer the crisis chats or calls are trained to handle any of those situations and offer real-time back-and-forth interaction that’s confidential and can help, she added.
Sometimes the crisis is deescalated, while other times someone might be connected to longer-term resources. The assistance depends on the need. Counselors can even help youths figure out how to approach tough topics with parents or other trusted adults. In extreme cases they can call in resources to head off life-altering actions.
“Those are times when we have had successful interventions of identifying a potential threat, partnering with law enforcement in schools and confiscating weapons before someone could be hurt. Fortunately, those are the rare extreme outliers, but those types of things do happen,” Lucynski said.
Most often, they help someone in crisis talk through what’s going on.
Here’s what happened on the SafeUT app in fiscal year 2024:
The report noted that Huntsman Mental Health Institute counselors made 1,661 calls to community partners to coordinate additional support. Nearly half were to schools and families, while over a fourth were to community resources. First responders were called 22% of the time, while the SafeUT user was called 3% of the time.
Among school safety tips, bullying (26%) and suicide (23%) were followed by substance abuse at 10%. Both school complaints and potential school threats made up 9% of tips each, then mental health at 6%.
Among tips from higher education, suicide was No. 1 at 40%, followed by mental health at 15%. Bullying came in a distant third at 9%.
This year, SafeUT Frontline chats included 176 from health care workers, 123 from law enforcement, 37 from corrections officers and 32 from fire fighters and emergency medical service personnel. In all, they had 13,138 back-and-forth messages.
The version of SafeUT launched specifically to help members of the military who struggle has had more than 5,200 downloads, according to the annual report. And so far, there have been 189 National Guard chats with nearly 6,000 back-and-forth messages.
The topics the apps support include thoughts of suicide or self-harm, personal stress, work stress, burnout, anxiety and depression including post-traumatic stress, substance use concerns, relationship problems and other life challenges.
No one is turned away from the SafeUT apps, though they target specific groups. But anyone can also call 988, Lucynski said.
The Huntsman Mental Health Institute also released its annual report this week. Lucynski said the institute supported more than 200,000 visits last year, trained 79 residents and published research in 270 peer-reviewed journals. They’re building a translational research building and in March a much-anticipated mental health crisis care center will open.
The 200,000 visits were from 33,000 individual patients and included more than 6,200 children from 45 states.
“I think we’re already being viewed not just as a regional leader but a national leader and have people coming to Utah to access care,” Lucynski said.
The institute’s work targets three focus areas: patient care, education efforts to train mental health experts and support staff and research that looks at the quality and outcome of services. Community is also important, she said. They also have seen a 20% increase in research grants with 90 grants active at the moment, about half of them from the National Institutes of Health.