SafeUT reports surge in tips, readies geofenced alerts and law-enforcement dashboard for next school year

SafeUT operators and partners told the School Security Task Force that the app continues to expand in use and capability and that several major feature upgrades are planned for the coming school year.

Rachel Lisonbee, director of Community Crisis Services at Huntsman Mental Health Institute (which operates SafeUT), reported that in fiscal year 2024 SafeUT handled 26,808 chats and more than 1,000,000 back-and-forth messages. The tip function generated 8,985 submissions; for the first time in SafeUT history, bullying was the top tip category, she said. Lisonbee also reported that 758 tips pertained to potential school threats or active violence and that SafeUT’s December 6 data push to the Statewide Information and Analysis Center (SCIAC) is live; between December 6 and December 31 SafeUT sent 34 tips to SCIAC that met the statutory threshold for threat to life or harm to others.

Lisonbee described a three‑phase enhancement plan for SafeUT: - Phase 1: Improve user profiles and communication. Users will be able to select multiple profiles (for example, a parent who is also an educator), associate with multiple schools and receive targeted notifications. A new notification center (an in-app inbox) and standardized message templates for schools and law enforcement are part of this phase. Phase 1 features were in final testing at the time of the meeting. - Phase 2: Location-based notifications. Users will be able to opt in to location services so SafeUT can deliver geofenced alerts to people in an affected area even if they are not associated with that school. SafeUT also plans credentialed, role‑based logins for educators and law enforcement to allow verified partners to send authorized outbound messages during emergencies without exposing confidential counseling chats. - Phase 3: Emergency protocol and outbound alerts. The app will support verified, attention‑grabbing push notifications issued by credentialed law-enforcement users in the event of an active threat or life‑threatening emergency. Lisonbee stressed that credentialed law-enforcement logins will not provide access to confidential chats; they are for outbound emergency notification only.

Lisonbee told the task force the technical team aims to complete the three phases and make features available in the 2025–26 school year (around August–September 2025). Representative Wilcox and other members urged schools and districts to coordinate with SafeUT staff before signing separate contracts for other vendor products and encouraged continued promotion and adoption of SafeUT.

SafeUT staff and the task force emphasized that SafeUT is intended as a behavioral-health first tool that also serves school-safety objectives by enabling confidential reporting and timely triage of tips that may indicate risk to individuals or to the school community.