Safety & crisis plans

The hardest moments are the ones where you have the least room to think. A seizure. A child who has slipped out the door. A meltdown that has flooded everyone in the room. CareHaven's safety tools are built around one simple idea: you write the plan ahead of time, when you are calm, so the right steps are ready when adrenaline is high.

Everything here is a "do this now" card. You set it up once. It waits quietly until you need it.

SOS — your contacts and crisis lines, one tap away

The SOS screen keeps your emergency contacts in order, each with a one-tap call button. Crisis lines for your region are already loaded — in the US that means 911, Poison Control, the Crisis Text Line, and the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Outside the US, the list re-localizes to your country's emergency and crisis numbers.

To choose who appears in SOS, open the Team area and mark any contact as an emergency contact. They show up in the order you added them, so put your most important contact first.

US users also get an expanded crisis directory: national resources like the Veterans Crisis Line, the Trevor Project, the NAMI HelpLine, and the National Domestic Violence Hotline, plus state-specific blocks (mobile-crisis lines, Child Protective Services, and any state helplines) for a number of high-population states. Text buttons pre-fill the keyword for you, so you only have to press send.

SOS lives at the top of the menu, so it is always reachable. Available

Crisis plans — five do-this-now cards

Crisis plans are calm plans you write before the hard moment, kept in the Safety area under Crisis plans. There are five kinds, each built for one of the highest-stakes situations. Available

Seizure plan. You record the rescue medication and dose, and the exact minute-marks for when to give it and when to call emergency services (911 in the US). Behind it is a live timer: tap Start, turn your ringer up, and the timer counts the seizure and tells you out loud — and buzzes — when to give the rescue med and when to call for help. You never have to watch the clock, so you can stay with your child. (For a full step-by-step, see Walkthrough: Log a seizure with the timer.)

If they go missing. A wandering plan: what they look like, where they tend to head (water first), the words that calm them, and who to call.

Calm-down plan. The early signs that things are escalating, what helps, and what makes it worse.

Safety plan. Six steps to get through the hardest moment, in order. The six headings are pre-filled, so you only fill in the detail.

Crisis card. Exactly what to tell a crisis line or dispatcher, with the right specifics ready.

Crisis and psychiatric plans are intentionally kept out of your iPhone's own Home Screen search, so a sensitive plan stays private if someone glances at your phone. You will always find them inside the app's Safety area and the in-app search.

When you are ready to build one, follow Walkthrough: Build a crisis plan.

Note on the seizure live timer. The in-app live timer ships today. Putting the plan timer on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, on Apple Watch, or behind a Siri command are planned fast-follows. Coming soon

For dementia and elder care, the wandering plan is also the foundation for the planned Found in Fifteen response: preparing the first fifteen minutes if someone goes missing, without using GPS tracking. See Dementia & elder care. Coming soon

First-aid cards

When something happens at the table or after a seizure, you may not have a free hand to search. CareHaven keeps short first-aid cards in the Safety area for the moments that count: choking (for a child and for an infant), aspiration, and post-seizure recovery. Each card leads with Call 911 and carries a plain reminder that it is guidance, not a substitute for emergency care. The choking card is one tap away from the Mealtime Safety Card and the "what to watch for" swallowing guidance, so the signs and the steps stay together. Available

In-the-Moment Coach — what to say

Sometimes the hardest part is finding the right words while a moment is unfolding. The In-the-Moment Coach, in the Caregiver area, gives you calm, plain say / skip / why cards for specific situations — a meltdown, the same question asked again and again in dementia, a panic attack, a reassurance demand in OCD, and how to be specific when you call 911 or 988. Each card shows you what to say, what to skip, and a short why, so you are not improvising under pressure. Available

Saved custom lines and the ability to favorite a card for read-aloud are planned additions. Coming soon

Calm Tools — for you, in the moment

The safety tools are mostly for your person. Calm Tools are for you. When a moment has flooded you and you need thirty seconds to steady yourself before you respond, open Calm Tools in the Caregiver area:

• Box breathing (4-4-4-4) — a visual box expands and contracts to pace you.
• 4-7-8 breathing — the long exhale helps your body down-regulate fast.
• A visual countdown timer — set anything from thirty seconds to five minutes for when you just need to step into another room and reset.
• A deck of calming reminders — one-line cards like "Their brain is overwhelmed, not scheming."

After a full breathing cycle, the app gently asks how you are now. If you are still stretched, it offers to open Share the Load; if you are not okay, it offers to call 988. Available

A Lock-Screen widget and a Siri "I need a minute" command for this reset are planned. Coming soon

Fatal Five — education before you need it

The Fatal Five are the leading, often preventable causes of death among people with intellectual and developmental disabilities — aspiration and choking, severe constipation, dehydration, prolonged seizures, and infection (with reflux as a recognized added factor). The point of this reference is to make the early signs familiar now, so they are easier to spot later.

You will find the full Fatal Five reference, with what to watch for and when to act for each one, plus a quick link from the SOS screen. Review it once a month, and any time a new caregiver joins your team. It is caregiver education, not medical advice — discuss specific symptoms and care plans with your care team. Available

Fatal Five is hidden in General Caregiver Mode, which trims the special-needs-specific surfaces; you can turn that mode off in Settings if you want these tools visible.

Epilepsy: what to watch for

If your person has epilepsy or seizures, the Medical area shows a short "What to watch for" card alongside the Seizure Tracker, so the signs and the next step sit together. It calls out three plain signs worth acting on:

• Seizures happening more often than usual — a cluster, or a step up from their normal pattern.
• A seizure that looks different — a new type, longer than usual, or involving a part of the body it didn't before.
• A seizure that won't stop — one lasting past your rescue-med minute-mark, or back-to-back without waking between. This is an emergency, and the card links straight to seizure first aid.

It also gives everyday guidance: track every episode, mind the common triggers (missed or late medication and short or broken sleep are two of the biggest), and stay rescue-med ready. It is plain-language reference drawn from published guidance — it doesn't diagnose or set a seizure plan; your doctor or neurologist does that. Available

Letter of Intent — what happens to them if something happens to me

The heaviest question many caregivers carry is what would happen to their person if they could no longer be there. The Letter of Intent, in the Safety area, makes that question small and doable: a guided document you fill a little at a time, capturing how your person lives, their medical must-knows, your hopes and values for them, and a prioritized list of who should step in.

Tap Start the letter and eight gentle sections seed in — a day in their life, what comforts them, how they communicate, medical must-knows, services and benefits, hard moments, your hopes and values, and where the money and legal papers live. A quiet "3 of 8 filled in" counter tracks progress without nagging. You can share it as plain text, with a note attached that it is not a legal document. It is meant to sit beside the legal papers — a will, a special-needs trust, guardianship — that an attorney prepares. Mark it reviewed once a year so it stays current. Available

Like the crisis plans, the Letter of Intent is kept out of your iPhone's Home Screen search so its sensitive detail stays private. A polished PDF export is planned. Coming soon

Care Card — the EMT-facing emergency view

The Care Card is a read-only, EMT-facing view of the most critical facts: name, age, diagnoses, allergies, key medications, code status, and emergency contacts. It is built for the first ten seconds of an emergency, when a first responder needs the essentials and nothing extra.

It is generated from the person's profile, medications, and advance directives — there is no separate authoring step, and changes propagate automatically. You can reach it from the Safety area and from SOS, surface it on the Emergency Lock Screen widget, or print it as a med-ID card. A good habit: print a copy for the fridge, the diaper bag, and grandma's house, and reprint after a big medication change. Available

The companion EAP Card pulls together everything a substitute caregiver or ER nurse needs — diagnoses, allergies, behavioral warning signs from the Cue Guide, sensory notes, and seizure protocol — built entirely from data already in the profile. Build it before you need it; in a real emergency there is no time to fill it in. Available

Health & Communication Passport

The Passport, in the Safety area under "Know this person," is the durable answer to "how do I care for this person?" It is one place that pulls together how they communicate, how distress shows up, what helps, what only you know, and their per-person emergency contacts — combined with their diagnoses, cues, and medications.

It has a turn-the-phone reader mode and a pre-share picker, so you can hand over exactly the sections that matter: communication and what-helps for a substitute teacher, for example, without the full medical or decision-maker detail. It is the richer companion to the Care Card — where the Care Card is the ten-second emergency snapshot, the Passport is the full briefing for anyone stepping into the role. Available

These cards are most useful when they already exist. The best time to build them is a quiet afternoon, not the moment you need them. A few good first steps:

• Walkthrough: Build a crisis plan — set up your first do-this-now card.
• Walkthrough: Log a seizure with the timer — see how the live timer works before you ever need it.
• Caregiver tools (for you) — Calm Tools, Share the Load, and the coach in one place.
• Medical — the Seizure Tracker, Health Watch, and the "what to watch for" cards.

Nothing here is a substitute for emergency care. When breathing, a seizure that won't stop, or a safety risk is in question, call emergency services.