A silent panic button for intake and counseling rooms, help arrives without escalating the room.
A silent trigger on every screen, answered by the colleagues nearby. No server hardware, it runs on a PC you already leave on. Works even when the internet is down. From US$200/year.
No credit card required for the trial. No additional hardware needed. No IT needed, as long as you have appropriate rights.
A client in withdrawal is escalating at intake. Your clinician’s training says de-escalate: no sudden moves, no phone, no visible alarm. A hotkey on the screen brings colleagues to the doorway, calm, quiet, already briefed on where. A silent alert is the only kind that fits a trauma-informed service.
What behavioural health settings have to plan for
Distress is the presenting reason
People arrive at a mental health or AOD service because they are unwell. Escalation is not a failure of the service, it is a foreseeable part of the work, and the safety plan should assume it rather than hope.
A visible alarm can make it worse
Anything that reads as a guard being called can escalate a person who is already frightened or paranoid. A trigger that makes no sound and shows nothing on the visible side of the screen keeps the room calm while help is on the way.
Clinicians are alone by design
A therapeutic session is a closed door and a private conversation. That is the point of it, and it is also why a clinician needs to be able to summon a colleague without breaking the session or reaching for a phone.
Where behavioural health services usually put it
- Every consulting and therapy room, including the ones used by visiting clinicians.
- Intake and reception, where someone in crisis first presents.
- Group rooms and the drop-in space, usually with a USB button rather than a shortcut.
- The clinical manager’s office, so there is a responder not carrying a caseload that hour.
- Any machine used for late clinics or outreach return, when fewer staff are on site.
The responder plan matters more here than the trigger does. Agree who steps in, what they do when they arrive, and who covers the room the responder just left. Then run it once as a drill so nobody is improvising the first time.
Three colours. Everyone understands them in one demo.
Green means ready
A small dot sits quietly in the corner of every screen. Staff know at a glance the system is live.
Red means help now
One click, hotkey or desk button, and a pop-up appears over whatever colleagues are working on, showing exactly where help is needed. No sound in the room. Nothing the visitor can see.
Orange means responding
The first colleague to respond is recorded, and the person who raised the alert sees their button turn orange. They know help is on the way before it arrives.
- Help is acknowledged. The moment a colleague responds, the person who raised the alert sees their button turn orange, they know help is coming before it arrives.
- No server hardware. Duress Alert runs on a Windows PC you already leave on, and alerts travel over your own network, so they keep working even when the internet is down.
- Easy to roll out. You install it yourself in about five minutes per computer, with the silent-install packages and a rollout guide included. Already a Duress Alert customer upgrading? We help you do it over a secure screen share.
Prefer something you can press without looking?
Add a physical button where it helps, around US$20 plus delivery. Unlike a hardwired button, Duress Alert warns you on screen the moment a button is unplugged, and confirms when it’s back, so you never discover a dead button during an emergency. And if a button ever fails, staff can still raise the alert from the screen, tray icon or hotkey.
A control you can evidence.
OSHA’s guidelines for healthcare and social service workers call for accessible means of summoning help; the Joint Commission’s workplace violence standards expect documented processes and incident review. Duress Alert supports both, and has no client or clinical data fields at all. Duress Alert’s dated raise, respond, reset history is evidence you can table, not a policy on a shelf.
Simple annual pricing
Team Safe
Group Safe
Corporate Safe
Multi Site Safe
Prices exclude sales tax. Local taxes are added where they apply.
Install and options
- One-off install US$99, includes training and 12 months of support.
- Optional physical desk button, from US$20 plus delivery. It warns you on screen the moment it is unplugged, so you never find a dead button in an emergency.
Start your free 21-day trial, covering up to 25 computers. Configure it and roll it out across your site, at no cost. The trial itself is free. If you go ahead afterwards, we can set it up with you for a one-off US$99. When you move from the trial to a full licence there is no extra effort, everything you have set up simply keeps running. No payment details to start, and you can cancel anytime.
For your IT provider
Your IT person (or ours) can push Duress Alert to every computer automatically, silent-install MSIs generated by the server with your configuration baked in, central management of every setting, and support for shared/remote desktops (RDS) and Mac. Client-to-server traffic stays on your local network (default TCP 8001); only the server talks to the cloud, over HTTPS, for licensing and reporting. Have an IT team, multiple sites, or shared/remote desktops? See our IT deployment page, silent installs, central configuration and rollout at any scale.
Common questions.
Not from the software. There is no sound by default and nothing on the practitioner’s screen that a person sitting opposite would recognise. What happens next is a colleague arriving, which the service controls.
Yes, and this is the common use. Most alerts are somebody wanting a second person in the room, not a crisis. The acknowledgement tells them a colleague has seen it and is coming.
No. There is no audio, no video and no session content. The record is that an alert was raised, from which machine, when it was acknowledged and by whom.
Any room with a computer can raise, and a USB button covers rooms where staff are standing rather than seated. Group and drop-in spaces are usually the ones where deciding the responder matters more than deciding the trigger.
Yes. OSHA’s guidelines for healthcare and social-service workers call for an accessible means of summoning help, and the Joint Commission’s workplace-violence standards expect documented processes and incident review. Duress Alert supports both, and has no client or clinical data fields at all.
No. Duress Alert runs on the Windows and Mac computers you already have. An optional physical desk button can be added from US$20 where a tactile trigger helps.
Annual licensing starts from US$200 for up to 10 users, with a Standard Site plan above that, plus a one-off US$99 install. Every plan includes a free 21-day trial.
The trial licence expires and alerting stops until a licence is applied. Nothing is charged automatically, and we hold no payment details from the trial.
Buy the licence in the Duress Alert cloud portal. If your server is cloud connected, which is the default, the licence updates itself at the server’s next check-in, and it checks in daily. For an offline installation, our team coordinates with you to apply the licence.
Whichever you prefer. You can run the silent installer yourself in about five minutes per computer, your own IT provider can do it, or we can do it with you as a one-off install service that includes training and 12 months of support.
Tell us about your site.
Tell us your team size and setting, and we’ll show you how Duress Alert works on your own desks and what a rollout looks like. We get back to you quickly.
Quiet backup for the hardest conversations in care.
Questions? Email us or send us a message, and we’ll get back to you quickly.
