Understanding Second Aid
What is Second Aid?
Second Aid is the mental-health equivalent of First Aid. It provides immediate access to self-stabilisation exercises, normally through QR codes positioned alongside physical First Aid kits. It is intended to provide an early support layer before further care is required or available.
Why is Second Aid needed?
Physical healthcare benefits from a widely available First Aid layer that allows minor injuries to be addressed before professional treatment. Mental healthcare does not have an equally established system of immediate, universal self-stabilisation. Second Aid is designed to address that gap.
How does Second Aid work?
A person scans a Second Aid QR code or opens secondaid.com, selects a support pathway and follows a guided exercise. Helplines and one-tap emergency calling are also available within the app. No account or professional training is required to access the exercises.
Who can use Second Aid?
Second Aid is available for personal use by people seeking immediate emotional support. Licensed organisations can also make it available to employees, students, patients, visitors and other relevant users.
What emotional difficulties does Second Aid support?
Second Aid includes pathways addressing panic, anxiety, stress, overwhelm, burnout, grief, heartbreak, low mood and loneliness. The exercises provide general self-use stabilisation support rather than diagnosis or treatment of medical conditions.
Is Second Aid therapy?
No. Just as First Aid does not replace a doctor, Second Aid does not replace psychotherapy, psychiatric treatment or other professional healthcare. It provides immediate emotional support and self-stabilisation exercises.
How It Fits With Existing Support
Does Second Aid replace professional care?
No. Like First Aid, Second Aid is designed to operate alongside professional support. A person who needs further assistance should seek an appropriate qualified professional, and an emergency requires immediate emergency intervention.
Does Second Aid replace an Employee Assistance Programme?
No. EAPs generally provide access to counselling and other professional services, but not in-the-moment stabilisation, for example during a panic attack. Second Aid fills that gap, including for the 41% of US adults who are not comfortable asking for help,1 and when an appointment is not immediately available.
How is Second Aid different from a wellness app?
Many wellness applications focus on ongoing wellbeing, habits, reflection or preventative activities. Second Aid's primary purpose is immediate support during emotional distress. Its QR-based deployment model is intended to make that support visible and accessible as part of ordinary health-and-safety infrastructure.
Does Second Aid encourage repeated use?
No. In line with MHTS, Second Aid uses no streaks, reward loops, artificial urgency or notifications designed to bring users back. It is there when needed; the aim is reduced long-term reliance, not habitual return.
Is Second Aid the same as Mental Health First Aid training?
No. Mental Health First Aid training prepares people to recognise mental-health difficulties and provide initial support to others. Second Aid provides an option that the person experiencing distress can use directly. Both approaches can complement one another.
Is Second Aid the same as Psychological First Aid?
No. Psychological First Aid is a broader framework for humane, practical and supportive assistance following distressing events. Second Aid draws on relevant psychological principles, particularly immediate stabilisation and further-support pathways. It does not reproduce the full scope of human-delivered PFA.
Evidence & Compliance
Is Second Aid evidence-based?
Second Aid's exercises draw on established psychological research, including breathing regulation, affect labelling and emotional regulation. Its core exercise, "Help Me Calm Down", also originated as a standalone tool of the same name, which has been examined through a two-year observational evaluation.
That study supports feasibility, acceptability and the occurrence of reported self-stabilisation among some users, but does not establish clinical efficacy of the full Second Aid system.
Has Second Aid been clinically proven?
Not as a complete clinical intervention. The existing HMCD evaluation is observational and does not establish causal treatment effectiveness. It provides evidence concerning voluntary access, independent use, acceptability and reports of calming during distress. Further controlled and prospective research is required.
Has Second Aid been proven to reduce suicide?
No. Reducing serious mental-health outcomes, including suicide, is part of the proposed long-term public-health rationale. However, the available research has not demonstrated that Second Aid reduces suicide rates. That would require substantially different and longer-term evaluation.
Does Second Aid make an organisation legally compliant?
Employers are legally obliged to address three gaps in immediate mental-health support: people unwilling or unable to ask for help, acute distress needing in-the-moment stabilisation, and waiting for professional assistance. Second Aid closes these gaps. Overall compliance still depends on the organisation's wider risk assessment and controls.
How does Second Aid relate to WMHSA?
WMHSA provides workplace mental-health support and response assessments. Its assessment framework includes situations where a worker cannot ask for help, needs immediate stabilisation or is waiting for professional assistance. Second Aid is identified as a potential control for these situations.
Further information: https://wmhsa.org
Use, Privacy & Safety
Is Second Aid suitable during a panic attack?
The "Help Me Calm Down" exercise is designed to provide support during heightened emotional arousal, including panic. Some users of its original standalone version reported calming during naturally occurring panic or anxiety episodes.
The intervention is not suitable for every circumstance, and anyone experiencing symptoms that may represent a medical emergency should seek appropriate medical assistance.
What happens during a mental-health emergency?
Emergency numbers are built into Second Aid, so a user can call emergency services in one tap from within the app, without completing an exercise or looking up a number. Links to crisis and emotional-support helplines are also provided where available. Second Aid itself does not assess risk or manage crises; it gets the person to the right emergency service as quickly as possible.
A person facing immediate danger should call emergency services straight away, using the in-app emergency call, or obtain urgent in-person assistance.
Does Second Aid require professional training?
No professional training is required to access and use the self-stabilisation exercises. Organisations may separately need trained staff or formal emergency procedures to meet their wider health-and-safety responsibilities.
Is Second Aid private?
Second Aid does not require public users to create an account or provide personally identifying information to access its support exercises. Privacy is built into its design: it uses zero cookies, no cross-site tracking and no third-party behavioural profiling, in compliance with the Mental Health Technology Standards (MHTS). Only anonymous aggregate statistics are collected, and these are publicly visible on its Open Analytics page. The applicable privacy policy is available at secondaid.com.
Does Second Aid collect personal mental-health records?
The public service is designed not to collect identifiable mental-health records. Anonymous aggregate statistics may be recorded to understand use of the service. Organisational billing information is handled separately from anonymous public use.
Can organisations see which employees have used Second Aid?
No. Second Aid is designed for private self-use and does not identify individual users. Licensed organisations receive aggregate data only: use by week, day and hour, rankings of the types of distress selected, and the percentage of users requiring further support.
Licensing & Pricing
Who needs a licence?
Personal use is free. Organisations wishing to formally deploy Second Aid for employees, students, patients, clients or other covered groups should obtain an appropriate organisational licence. The applicable rights and conditions are described in the Terms of Service.
What does an organisational licence include?
An official digital licence, a custom QR code and link, organisational branding and aggregate usage reporting. See What a Licence Includes for details.
How much does a licence cost?
Pricing depends on the organisation type, its size (for example, number of employees) and the licence term, starting at $300 for a one-year licence. Licences are available for one, three or five years, with 10% and 20% discounts on the longer terms. See Pricing. Eligible organisations may qualify for subsidies or discounts. Current pricing is available at secondaid.com.
Can an organisation request an invoice?
Yes. Organisations can pay online or request an invoice if payment needs to go through their finance department.
Does a licence renew automatically?
No. The published Terms of Service state that licences have fixed terms and do not automatically renew. A new purchase or extension is required to continue beyond the licence expiry date.
Deployment
Where should Second Aid kits be installed?
The primary recommendation is beside existing First Aid kits. Additional accessible locations may include staff areas, bathrooms, kitchens, next to water coolers, common rooms and other appropriate spaces. The objective is to ensure that somebody experiencing distress can find and access Second Aid without unnecessary barriers.
Does deployment require IT integration?
No. Second Aid is accessed through a QR code or web link, so no software installation or IT integration is required. Users need an internet-connected smartphone or other device.
How quickly can Second Aid be deployed?
Immediately. Once a licence is generated, the organisation can print and distribute its custom QR code and share its custom link straight away. No staff training is required.
Can Second Aid be deployed across multiple locations?
Yes. The licensing and deployment model is suitable for organisations operating multiple offices, campuses, healthcare facilities or other locations. Coverage and permitted use remain subject to the applicable licence.
Is Second Aid available internationally?
Yes. Second Aid is used across 140+ countries and supports 10+ languages, with localised versions including Segundos Auxilios, Deuxièmes Secours and Zweite Hilfe. Emergency numbers are built in for every country and national helplines are provided where available; organisations need only consider the appropriate language version and relevant legal requirements for each location.
How can an organisation get started?
An organisation can review the licensing options at secondaid.com, obtain an appropriate licence, download its official QR code and place the Second Aid kits in accessible locations. The Deployment chapter provides further guidance on planning, installation and ongoing maintenance.
Learn More
The other chapters of this website explain Second Aid's purpose, operation, safeguards, evidence, legal context, licensing and deployment.
The official application and licensing website is: https://www.secondaid.com
For enquiries: [email protected]