Alongside vs Menthra Compass

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.

Menthra Compass is a web-based emotional wellbeing platform for K-12 schools, colleges, and universities. Its AI companions are available 24/7 and support conversations about anxiety, bullying, academic pressure, identity, and family stress, with age-appropriate conversations for K-12 users. The published crisis process sends Level 2 and Level 3 interactions to a human counselor within 10 minutes during school hours, with on-call escalation overnight. Counselors receive crisis alerts, aggregate wellness insights, and session context. Education integrations include district SSO/LMS, LMS/SIS integration for Growth, and API integration for Enterprise. University offerings list six companion styles, multilingual support, anonymous routine use, and SSO. Menthra says conversations are encrypted in transit and at rest, stored in the United States, and not sold; education data belongs to the institution. The platform is designed to support FERPA and COPPA workflows, including parental consent for users under 13.