High schoolers and one Kentucky school district have could have counseling help at their fingertips.

And Bullet County Schools partnered with a Louisville based software company to create an AI powered app that high school students can access counseling resources.

More about this in tonight's Education Matters reports.

We are here to provide an education for them, but we can't really provide that unless their basic needs and their emotional support are taken care of first.

So I really think that this app provides that for them.

And they can show up to school knowing that they have a means of support, 24 seven even when they're outside of these walls.

We are hearing a lot that kids were already using AI and chat bots to give emotional support, but using something broad like a ChatGPT can be a little risky because it's just connecting to the broad internet and not exactly what you want.

A vulnerable teenage population looking to for advice.

And we just felt really strongly that we needed to set up a flow that kept a human in the loop, which I think is really critical with AI.

So the slingshot team worked really closely with the Youth Coalition to understand what the needs were.

We worked really closely with counselors and staff to understand what their concerns were, how we could build something that worked for them as well.

And then we built both a mobile app and a web app.

So the app is very user friendly.

There was resources.

There's little characters that you can personalize based on your mood.

There's a chat box so you can go and you can type in whatever you're feeling or whatever you need help with, and it will provide feedback or information on that topic.

The app itself has a chat bot that's been trained on data provided by counselors and staff, so it's only connecting to that verified data on how to give feedback and how to coach kids through emotional situations.

So the app itself is there.

And then there's also a resource section.

So something we were hearing from kids is, you know, handouts and PDFs are okay, but it's not something that really resonates with us.

So we're taking those same pieces of content that tell you how to navigate a tough situation.

And we're turning it into a quiz or a quick article or a podcast or something that really feels like it lands with the teenager.

And then we also have a way for them to digitally reach out to their counselors if they need in-person support.

So there is feedback that there could be a lot of stigma around having to go down to the office or request an appointment.

That that was a real barrier to getting human help.

And we were able to build a flow where students could go in and say, you know, I'm raising my hand.

I need help.

We're hoping to see a decrease in the number of bullying and mental health, issues that we see.

But we were also hoping to just give students an outlet to know that they're not alone, and to know that they have somewhere that they can go to, even if it's just on their phone.

It's an easy way to just go and say, hey, I'm not doing so well.

I need to talk with somebody.

And so I think just seeing the amount of help that students are getting go up and the amount of bullying and, mental health issues go down.

I would always say our first line of is is a human, but this is here as as back up as well.