lighthouse

Crisis doesn't wait.
Neither do we.

Built for families facing the storm — by families who have already weathered it.

A navigator for families facing a child's mental health crisis

Balise guides parents through the hardest hours of a child's mental health crisis — from immediate stabilization through provider matching, care team coordination, and long-term support. Clinically grounded. Human supervised. No technology making decisions alone.

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Our Story

Built for families facing the storm — by families who have already weathered it.

Balise was not born in a boardroom. It was built from a map drawn the hard way, by parents who lived this and refused to let the next family figure it out alone.

Hayley Higgins

Founder — Balise / Founder and President, Allovus Design Inc.

Sami was 15 when Hayley first noticed something shifting. What followed were eight years of emergency rooms, insurance denials, mismatched therapists, and a system with no roadmap. She built spreadsheets at midnight. She retold their story to strangers at every new intake form. She assembled a care team — a psychiatrist, a trauma counselor, neurofeedback, somatic bodywork, a financial advocate, a school that would work with them — piece by piece, without a guide, at enormous cost.

Sami is in college now. She has her own apartment. She volunteers with horses and with cats at a shelter. She still has a road ahead. But she is here — and Hayley is no longer the only thing tethering her to this earth.

"Our journey should not be the price of admission to getting help."

James Tee

AI Design Lead — Balise / Former Principal Design Manager, Microsoft Azure AI Foundry

James navigated mental health crises with two daughters of his own. As a principal designer on Microsoft's Azure AI Foundry team — having shaped conversational AI on Cortana, Copilot Studio, and Windows 10 — he arrived at a clear conviction: AI could do for families in crisis what no human caseworker could do at 2am. Not diagnose. Not treat. Navigate.

James and Hayley did not share the same journey. They shared the same destination: the moment a parent realizes the system has no guide. Their paths were different. Their conclusion was identical.

"I know what this costs a family. I also know what AI can do about it."

The Problem

No product exists today to guide a parent through the first 24 hours of a child's mental health crisis — one of the most consequential and underserved moments in all of healthcare.

There is a moment in the emergency room when everything changes. You brought your child in because there were no options left. And somewhere between the intake forms and the psych evaluation, the last layer of denial falls away.

"Nobody prepares you for what comes next. Not the ER staff. Not the discharge paperwork. Not the list of phone numbers they hand you on the way out the door."

— Hayley Higgins, Balise Founder

Finding help is a scavenger hunt through noise. The resources exist. The providers exist. What does not exist is a guide. Our journey should not be the price of admission to getting help.

1 in 6
adolescents experienced a major depressive episode in the past year
SAMHSA National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2024
56%
of caregivers report that accessing mental health care is difficult or impossible
NSCH, 2020–2022
44%
of children discharged from a mental health emergency visit received no outpatient follow-up within 30 days
American Academy of Pediatrics, 2023
1 in 4
children returned to the emergency department or were hospitalized again within six months of a mental health discharge
American Academy of Pediatrics, 2023

How Balise Works

From crisis to care — in a fraction of the time it took us.

No account required. No clinical background required. No insurance expertise required. Every interaction is built on Dialectical Behavior Therapy principles — making the experience itself therapeutic, not just functional.

Stabilize

Describe what is happening in your own words. Balise surfaces the most important next steps immediately — crisis lines, mobile crisis teams, local ER options, and immediate safety resources based on your location and situation.

No forms. No jargon. Just help.

Match

Guided questions connect your family to providers who specialize in exactly what your child is facing — matched by age, clinical need, insurance, geography, and availability. Every match is grounded in verified, curated data reviewed by our clinical team.

The right help for this child, not just any provider.

Build

A psychiatrist. A trauma counselor. A somatic practitioner. A school liaison. An insurance advocate. Balise helps you build and coordinate a real care team — so you are never the only connective tissue holding everything together.

The team your child needs. Not just one provider.

Adapt

The interface reads how you are holding up and adjusts in real time — from guided questions when you can think, to simple yes-or-no taps when you cannot. Designed for the moments when cognitive load is highest.

Built for the worst moments, not the best ones.

The Product

What it looks like when you open it at 2am.

Zero friction. No signup. Help in seconds.

The first screen asks one thing: how are you holding up right now? From there, Balise adapts — guided questions when you can think, simple yes-or-no taps when you cannot.

Everything shared is private and HIPAA-compliant. Your name, your child's name, your situation — it lives only in that session. When you close the window, it is gone.

Entry and Privacy — Start immediately. No account required. Full session privacy from the first tap.

Guided Questions — Capacity-aware intake that reads where you are and meets you there.

Prototype screens shown. Product in active development.

Mobile phone views of the entry and privacy screen and example of a guided questions screen

What Makes Balise Different

The guide that every other resource forgot to be.

Crisis lines stabilize. Directories list. Wellness apps manage moods. None of them hold a family across the full arc of what this actually looks like.

Caregiver-first design

Most mental health platforms are built for the patient or the clinician. Balise is built for the parent — the person doing the navigating — in the hardest moment of their life.

Crisis to recovery, not just crisis

From the acute moment through provider matching, care team coordination, and ongoing support. A full navigation arc. Balise does not hand you off and disappear.

Grounded in DBT best practices

Every interaction is built on Dialectical Behavior Therapy principles — making the experience therapeutic, not just functional. Clinical practices drive the UX, not the other way around. Verified by our clinical team.

Equity at the core

Medicaid, sliding scale, and uninsured access filters are first-class features, not footnotes. Balise is built for every family — not just the ones who already know how to navigate.

What Balise is not

Balise does not diagnose, treat, or replace professional care. It does not operate a crisis hotline or provide real-time therapy. It is a navigation tool — the guide that helps families find and coordinate the right human care, faster.

The Team

A powerhouse assembled before a dollar of funding existed.

Every person on this team has been touched by mental health crisis — personally, professionally, or both. They did not join for the opportunity. They joined because they know what this problem costs families, and they are done waiting for someone else to fix it.

Hayley Higgins

Founder, Vision & Strategy

18 years building Allovus Design Inc. Expert at assembling high-performing teams around hard problems. Lived this journey.

The story-keeper.

James Tee

AI Design Lead & Parent Advocate

Microsoft Azure AI Foundry, Windows 10, Cortana, Copilot Studio. Expert in how AI impacts design and the human experience.

Father of two daughters who navigated this.

Jenn Mason

AI Engineering & Social Justice Technology

Software design agency leader building community-focused, equity-centered products. Has already built Balise's intake AI agent.

The builder who believed first.

Mary Cadera

Clinical Advisor & Therapist

25 years of experience including Paul Allen's organization. Bridges tech product fluency with mental health clinical practice.

Clinical credibility meets product instinct.

Chris Teitzel

Technology, Engineering & Security

16+ years building HIPAA-compliant enterprise platforms. Cellar Door. National data privacy advisor. Seasoned founder.

Builds things that hold sensitive data safely.

Steve Godfrey

Creative Director, UX & Design

20+ years in UX, high-fidelity prototyping, and branding. Ensures every screen Balise shows meets a parent where they are.

Design that earns trust under stress.

Scott Schopman

Product Manager & Prototyper

15+ years in product management, QA, and mobile development. Has already built Prototype #1.

Turns complexity into something shippable.

Jackie Smith

Clinical Lead — Touchpoint Consulting

Experienced clinician and consultant. Brings deep mental health system knowledge to triage protocols and clinical governance.

The clinical anchor.

Liz Ashley & Shelby Butcher

Research, Product Management & Project Management

Research rigor, workflow intelligence, and the operational muscle that keeps everything moving forward.

The team behind the team.

Get Involved

Help us build the guide we needed.

Balise is seeking $1,000,000 to build and validate our MVP — from intake through provider matching, care team coordination, and the educational layer families need to navigate what comes next.

We are starting with our community: the people who know this problem personally, who have watched families struggle, or who simply believe that a child in crisis deserves better than a piece of paper and a parking lot.

  • Every dollar funds real product development — not overhead
  • A volunteer team of 10 has already built the foundation
  • The intake AI agent and Prototype #1 are already working
  • Clinical, design, engineering, and legal disciplines are all represented

The revenue model moves with the user: free crisis access converts naturally to account creation as families build long-term care teams, enabling a premium navigation tier. Beyond consumer revenue, Balise's care coordination layer creates B2B pathways — health system licensing, Medicaid managed care partnerships, and payer contracts that pay per-member-per-month for navigation that reduces costly ED revisits.

We are starting with parents and children. The navigation problem we are solving — fragmented systems, no guide, families left alone at the worst moment — applies across mental health, chronic illness, aging care, and beyond. This is a starting point, not a ceiling.

"If you have ever been that parent — in that parking lot, in that waiting room, at that kitchen table at 2am — this is for you."

Join the founding circle.

Friends, family, and community supporters.

Your contribution funds the MVP that will help the next family in crisis find the right care faster than we did. Every amount matters. Every person who believes in this makes it more real.

Get in touch to support

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