Saskatchewan-made app aimed at helping farmers’ mental health launched

Farmers across Saskatchewan have a lot to worry about on any given day and a new app is hoping to help support producers and their mental health.

Bridges Health, which is based in Saskatoon, was awarded a $10,000 grant and a 16-week residency by Innovations Saskatchewan to help with the creation of its app Avail.

The app, which is available on both Google and Apple, offers producers a confidential system that allows them to track and analyze their mental health as well as provide access to many different resources online.

“Farmers and ranchers endure high levels of stress which can negatively impact their health, their life and, in turn, the economy as well,” Everett Hindley, Saskatchewan’s minister of mental health and addictions and of rural and remote health, said Thursday.

“In 2019-20, more than 1,000 calls were made to the toll-free stress line, which is an increase of almost 300 calls from the previous year.”

Leon Ferguson, vice-president of Bridges Health, said the app does routine self-assessments which personalizes the tool for each person. It then scores a person on their answers and provides supports and access to services that could help improve a person’s score in that area.

“We’re constantly looking at bringing more (resources) on. There’s a pretty rigid due diligence process that we go through to ensure the people we put into our support systems are reliable,” Ferguson said.

“We’re confident the people that are in there now are well-respected professionals and community services.”

Ferguson said people’s personal information will be safe.

“Privacy is very important. We follow the strictest regulations and guidelines. The information you share inside the app is your information. It will not be shared (and) it cannot be shared (because) we don’t have it,” Ferguson said.

Organizations can also sign up for the app and get information about the current state of their workplace.

“There would be no names or anything like that but the benefit of it is that you can see the trends of where your groups are at as it relates to any kind of ailments that you want to address right away and what’s really going well,” Ferguson said.

The app can be geared towards anyone but Ferguson said the content in it is specific.

“We worked really hard at trying to achieve that relatability and, at the end of the day, the ability to have access to your support systems around the rural parts of our province is a big one as well,” Ferguson said.

He said the app could help younger farmers find supports as opposed to the existing farm stress line.

“When we are able to access these kinds of tools and supports, we’re able to get a better understanding of the overall health and wellness and how it all plays together,” Ferguson said.

“What we’re trying to do is achieve the success and the prevention and sustainability and to thrive so that those stress lines aren’t needed as much but they’re definitely very valuable to be there now.”

The app is free to use but if someone needs to get outside support, they would have to pay those fees.