Alongside vs Clare

Alongside is a wellness platform for K–12 schools, founded in 2022, with self-guided tools and clinician-built coaching chats. Its student service is designed for grades 4–12, while Alongside for Educators offers self-help resources for faculty and staff. Students can chat confidentially about challenges 24/7 and receive clinically informed techniques drawing on CBT, DBT, ACT and mindfulness. They can track moods, set goals, journal, watch mindfulness and social-skills videos, and complete personalized exercises covering more than 50 common issues, including friendships, self-esteem and anxiety. Schools can add universal mental health screeners and social-emotional competency assessments, and school and district dashboards report usage and student concerns. For detected suicidal ideation risk, the described response can involve a standard assessment, connection to 988, notification of school personnel and safety planning. Alongside says AI is not used for universal screening or crisis-severity assessment. It is available in a browser and through iOS and Android apps. The service is self-help, not therapy, medical advice, treatment or a crisis service; screening does not provide a diagnosis.

Clare is a conversational self-help service intended to support people through mental health concerns. Users can speak with Clare by phone or send WhatsApp messages, follow a weekly call schedule, or start a call when they choose. It offers reflection exercises and coping tools drawing on self-compassion, stress management, positive psychology, resilience, and meditation. The maker says psychologists curate the content and advisors oversee it. Clare is available on Android, iOS, and web; phone calls, WhatsApp, and SMS are listed access options. The maker also presents a clinical AI for clinic and practice admissions, including automated intake assessment that it says saves practitioners 60 minutes. Clare says it processes health information only with explicit consent, does not sell user data or use it to train its systems, and deletes data on request. It states that it is HIPAA and GDPR compliant. Clare does not provide or replace traditional psychotherapy and recommends professional help for persistent or strong anxiety symptoms. Its terms exclude people under 18 and certain acute or serious conditions.