Five teenage girls, Chloe Westphal, Marina Stepanov, Stephanie Lopez, Genesis Saucedo and Amanda Arellano, who are all students at Tri-Tech Skills Center in Kennhewick, Washington, designed an app to help students manage stress and deal with anxiety and depression.
The app, which is called Safe and Sound, features a journal for users to express their thoughts and descriptions about different kinds of anxiety and depression and their corresponding symptoms. One of the students explained that the idea for the app was in reaction to the recent shootings by a high school freshman, who killed five students and then, himself at Washington state, the app was created to help teenagers cope with tragedies in the community.
The app, Safe and Sound went on to win the Verizon Innovative App Challenge, which means its designers will meet with Massachusetts Institute of Technology trainers in a few weeks to build the app.
Although the project started as a submission in a competition, the students have bigger plans for the finished product. Amanda said the team wants Safe and Sound to go beyond the typical apps teens use today.
“Our hope is that Safe and Sound will be more than just a stress management app, but a light in the darkness that is anxiety and depression.”
