A friendly judgement-free listener and excellent secret keeper.
Sonny is a blend of AI and human expertise.
They are powered by AI, which helps Sonny suggest strategies to support you, and every convo is supervised by a human Wellbeing Companion to make sure Sonny understands your messages accurately (and to prevent glitching!).
As you interact, Sonny gets to know you better, fine-tuning their advice and support to perfectly suit your needs.
What can I chat about with Sonny?
Sonny's ears (and heart) are open for anything! Here's a starting point for your chats, but you can take them in any direction you wish. It's a safe space, just between you and Sonny.
Sonny is also here to connect you with local support and resources, from finding a therapist to discovering community activities that enhance emotional understanding.
Privacy meets care with Sonny’s listening in feature.
What sets Sonny apart is their proactive approach to supporting your mental health. With Sonar’s cutting-edge AI, Sonny can offer support, identifying potential emotional distress signals in your texts or social media activity—always with your permission, ensuring your well-being is looked after without compromising privacy.
Opt in to let Sonny safeguard your wellbeing with compassion and discretion.
- Wellbeing Companions are highly vetted & certified peer counselors aged 18-28.
- Our vetting process includes multiple interviews, a live case, references, and a background check.
- We take them through a certification & training process, led by an adolescent psychiatrist. This includes instructional sessions and role shadowing.
- We also use continuous training and supervision to ensure students are receiving the highest quality support.
- Having tested peer counselors vs. therapists for our use case, we have found that peers were more effective at connecting with students and helping them cope with challenges! If we believe a therapist is required, we can help the student and their family find one.
No, our Wellbeing Companions are not chatbots. They are real, certified peer counselors who are trained in techniques such as motivational interviewing (MI) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Sonar algorithms securely review the content you produce on social media, searches and texting. We have developed a research-backed method that uses this data to identify moments for wellbeing support.
- If we identify one of these moments, we reach out to you to check if you want real-time support and work with you to find helpful resources.
- This data is not used for any other purpose and we will NOT sell this data.
- The benefit of sharing this data is that it helps us to identify challenges earlier (potentially before a crisis occurs). And if there is a crisis, we can identify your emergency contact to ensure you are safe
- Your information is private and confidential. The contents of your conversations are only used by Sonar to deliver the highest quality and personal support.
- The only time we may share your information with an outside party is when we believe you are at risk of harming yourself or others.
- Sonar has an escalation protocol that follows clinical best practices.
- In the event of a crisis situation, we i) engage with you to support and suggest crisis resources (e.g., 988) and ii) reach out to your emergency contact with detail to enable immediate support. Should you stop responding, we can’t reach your emergency contact and believe there is imminent risk of harm to self or others, we will reach out to the emergency department.
- You can reach out to your school’s Champion or to Sonar directly at support@sonarmentalhealth.com
- We very much value your feedback, so please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns (no matter how small)
