SUNY PFA Assistant
GenAI Tool for Psychological First Aid of Disaster Survivors
As disasters and humanitarian crises increase around the globe, the use of psychological first aid to support the mental health of survivors is limited by resource constraints, geographic barriers, and cultural and linguistic differences. A human connection is a primary, foundational aspect of mental health recovery for disaster survivors. At the same time, the need for mental health support in the early aftermath of a disaster predictably far exceeds human resource capacity. A GenAI-supported Psychological First Aid (PFA) tool offers an innovative way to sustain and extend disaster mental health support beyond the one-shot face-to-face interactions that are often all that is possible in traditional disaster mental health services.
The SUNY PFA Assistant is designed to be used by disaster response and humanitarian relief organizations and deployed only by individuals trained in PFA. After engaging a survivor and providing initial face-to-face PFA support, the provider can opt to share the PFA Assistant with the survivor, and can then work with the survivor to select and activate the most relevant functions of the tool for that survivor.
In this way, the SUNY PFA Assistant will be used to extend – not replace – human support.
The SUNY PFA Assistant will strengthen and build capacity in PFA service delivery, training, and research.
FEATURES
PFA Provider-Facing Tool
1. AI-Assistant support for PFA delivery
At any point when offering PFA, a provider can:
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Ask questions to get intervention guidance
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Access live, curated, vetted links for information, resources and referrals
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Access a library of vetted, evidence-based coping strategies to be used for psychoeducation with a survivor
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Build an action plan with a survivor
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Share links, action plans, and a customized, survivor-facing version of the tool with the survivor
2. PFA Refresher
At any point, PFA providers wanting to refresh their PFA knowledge and skills can:
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Review the complete PFA training manual
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Ask specific questions via chat-bot support
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Access training videos and practice scenarios
3. Provider self-care support
At any point before, during, or after a deployment, a provider can:
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Build and use an interactive stress inoculation plan
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Build and use a personal coping strategies library
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Process their experiences via a journal function
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Access a supervisor and other identified support people
Disaster Survivor-Facing Tool
Via a survivor-facing version of the tool shared by a PFA provider, a survivor can
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Access and interact with a personalized action plan
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Obtain information and resources via curated links
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Practice coping skills via a personalized coping strategies library
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Engage with a chat-bot to receive additional PFA support
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Request additional support from a human provider
Advancing Service Delivery
By combining evidence-informed PFA principles with advanced AI capabilities, the SUNY PFA Assistant will address current limitations and gaps in the delivery of mental health services by:
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Expanding service capacity and scalability:
The SUNY PFA Assistant will overcome the human resource limitations of traditional service provision by expanding intervention capacity beyond the single, brief interactions which are often all that an individual provider can offer in any given situation.
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Immediate support and 24/7 availability:
The SUNY PFA Assistant will extend the support offered by providers by giving survivors options for immediate, 24/7 access to digital interventions, resources, and plans that were originally offered by the provider.
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Anonymity and reduced stigma:
The SUNY PFA Assistant will offer survivors the option to engage with the digital tool with privacy and discretion. While not a primary goal of the tool, the chat function will allow survivors to get anonymous support for concerns for which they might otherwise be hesitant to seek help, while always having the option of requesting additional access to a human provider. Built-in guardrails will also automatically route the survivor to a human provider for immediate crisis response, ensuring proper care in high-risk situations.
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Multilingual and cultural adaptability:
The SUNY PFA Assistant can be tailored to any cultural and linguistic context by training the model on local data and in local languages that incorporate local idioms of distress and other culturally nuanced approaches to mental health.
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Off-line functionality:
The SUNY PFA Assistant includes design features that function with limited or no internet connectivity, ensuring accessibility in locations where communication infrastructure is limited or damaged.
Advancing Training
Despite widespread adoption of PFA as the recommended, evidence-informed early mental health intervention of choice around the globe, training remains highly variable in content, delivery, and evaluation—limiting consistency and measurable outcomes across programs. The SUNY PFA Assistant can strengthen and standardize training by embedding evidence-based competency frameworks within an interactive, adaptive learning environment. Through realistic AI-driven simulations, trainees can practice communication and support skills across diverse scenarios and receive instant feedback. By capturing data on learner performance and engagement, it also supports ongoing evaluation and improvement of training methods, contributing to a stronger, evidence-informed foundation for effective PFA.
Advancing Research
The SUNY PFA Assistant also creates powerful new opportunities for advancing global research on the effectiveness of disaster mental health interventions. By operating as a scalable, data-informed platform, it can systematically and ethically collect anonymized information about user interactions, decision patterns, and emotional responses across diverse cultural and crisis contexts. The tool enables cross-comparison of responses and outcomes across regions, languages, and demographic groups—providing insights that traditional, localized studies often cannot capture. By integrating standardized training, delivery, and evaluation mechanisms, the tool supports the development of a stronger, more globally representative evidence base for Psychological First Aid and other early mental health interventions, helping to shape more effective, inclusive, and equitable disaster response strategies worldwide.
Safe & Ethical Use
Safe and responsible use of the SUNY PFA Assistant are of the utmost importance. The tool is being built with maximum safety features to ensure that it minimizes risks and maximizes benefit to the survivor and the provider. Key safety features and guardrails include:
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Designed in collaboration with people with lived experience
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Tightly defined scope of use
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Grounding in trusted sources
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Safety layer to detect, refuse, or re-route
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Crisis routing/Human-in-the-loop
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Rigorous benchmarks and ongoing quality assurance monitoring
Get in Touch
Interested in collaborating, deploying, or partnering? Get in touch to help us advance ethical, scalable psychological first aid for all.