Stress Management Tools: Calm and Headspace

Mostly the wrong tools for this group, for two reasons that have nothing to do with how good the apps are.

The first is language. Both are built around spoken guidance, and the guidance exists in a small number of European languages. Headspace lists German, English, Spanish, French and Portuguese on its own site. If your mentee is most comfortable in Arabic, Somali, Ukrainian, Tigrinya or Dari, an app that talks to her calmly in a language she has to concentrate to follow is not going to reduce her stress.

The second is money. Both work on subscription with a limited free tier and a trial. Recommending a paid subscription to someone counting what is left at the end of the month reads as not having understood her situation, even when you meant well.

The alternative we use is WHO's Doing What Matters in Times of Stress. It is free, it is available in more than fifty languages, WHO describes it as informed by evidence and extensive field testing, and it is illustrated, which means it survives low literacy and a small phone screen better than a wall of text does. There are audio exercises alongside it for people who prefer listening.

I did not know that guide existed. Do you send it and leave her to it, or is there a better way to introduce it?

Do not send a file and hope. Open it in the session, look at one section together, and try one exercise there and then, badly and briefly. A technique someone has done once with another person present gets used again far more often than one that arrived as an attachment.

Two cautions to keep with it. This is self-help for everyday stress and it is not treatment. If what you are seeing looks like it needs clinical help, a guide does not replace a referral and should not be used to delay one. And check with her which language version she wants rather than assuming from nationality, because the language of school is often not the language of home.