Medical and Crisis Disclaimer

What Alani is

Alani is a place to put down what happened, to be among other parents who lost a baby, and to find people you can talk to. It holds a private journal, a peer support feed, a sequence of short readings, and a list of outside resources. It is delivered through an iOS app and through this website.

The readings are numbered, and that is a shape rather than a plan. There is no course to complete here and no schedule you are on. They are written support content, made to sit with you, to put words near something that has none, and to give you a small thing to return to whenever you want it. That is all they are, and this page is here to be plain about that.

Alani is for people aged 18 and over.

What Alani is not

Alani is not therapy. It is not counseling. It is not medical advice.

It is not a treatment for grief, depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress, or anything else. Nothing in the app is a diagnosis, and nothing in it is a substitute for care from a person who is qualified to give it.

Please do not use anything in Alani to decide whether to:

• seek medical or mental health care
• stop care you are already receiving
• start, change, or stop a medication
• put off seeing somebody

Those decisions belong with you and a professional who knows your situation. If something you read here makes you wonder whether you should see somebody, please see somebody.

No clinician relationship

The Alani Jones Foundation is not a healthcare provider. Nobody at the Foundation is acting as your doctor, therapist, midwife, counselor, or clinician.

Using Alani does not create a clinician relationship between you and the Foundation, and it does not create a duty of care. Reading the app, writing in the journal, or posting to the feed does not put anybody in charge of your health.

In a crisis

Alani is not monitored in real time. Nobody is watching for a person in danger. Anything you post to the peer support feed may not be read by the Foundation for some time, or at all. Please do not use Alani to ask for help in an emergency, because help will not come from it.

If you are in the United States:

• Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. It is free and open at every hour.
• Call 911 for an emergency.
• If you or somebody with you is in immediate danger, go to the nearest emergency department, or ask somebody to take you.

If you are thinking about hurting yourself, please tell one real person tonight. It does not have to be the right person, and you do not have to explain it well.

About the check-in questions

Alani asks how lonely you feel, on a scale. It asks so that you have something to look back on, and so the days stop blurring into one.

It is not a clinical screening instrument. It is not a diagnosis. It is not a substitute for an assessment by a professional, and no number it gives back means you are well or unwell. A day that scores low is not proof you are fine. A day that scores high is not proof something is wrong with you.

One answer does something. If you say you feel completely alone, the app sends an email to the Foundation so that a person knows, and we will try to reach you. That email says who you are, your baby's name and the score. It does not include anything you wrote in your journal.

Please do not rely on it. It reaches an inbox, not a clinician and not a dispatcher. It is not watched overnight, at weekends or around the clock, and there is no guarantee of how quickly anyone will see it. It is not a way to get help in an emergency. If you need somebody now, use the numbers above.

Peer support is not professional advice

The peer support feed is other bereaved parents. They are not professionals, and they are not speaking for the Foundation.

What another parent writes is their own experience, offered in good faith. The Foundation does not check it, does not endorse it, and cannot promise it is right for you. Two parents who lost a baby can need opposite things. Take what helps you and leave the rest.

Outside resources

This site lists outside organizations and services, so that you have somewhere further to go. They are listed for convenience only.

The Foundation does not employ them, supervise them, check their licenses, or vouch for the care they give. Listing something here is not a recommendation of it. If you decide to work with somebody you found through this site, please check their credentials yourself, the way you would with anybody else.

Comfort boxes and other physical items

Comfort boxes hold ordinary keepsake goods. They are not medical devices, they are not sterile, and they are not intended for clinical use of any kind. Nothing in a box should be used for a medical purpose or brought into one.

No guarantee of outcome

Grief does not run to a schedule, and nothing here is a cure. Reaching the end of the readings does not mean you will feel better. Not reaching the end does not mean you failed at anything. There is no finishing this.

The Foundation does not promise any particular result from using Alani, and it is not able to. What it can do is keep the readings there for whenever you come back to them.

Reaching the Foundation

If you have a question about this page, write to us at legal@alanijonesfoundation.org.

That address is read by people, not by a system that watches for emergencies. If you need help now, please use the numbers above instead.