Cal State Fullerton students, as well as faculty, staff and visitors, now have access to a comprehensive digital resource that can connect them to emergency assistance, mental health support and many other key campus services, thanks to the release of the new TitanSafety mobile application. In addition to police support, TitanSafety furnishes access to the university\u2019s Mobile Crisis Team, Counseling and Psychological Services and much more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to get all of these resources into the students\u2019 hands so they wouldn\u2019t have to go to several different websites to find them,\u201d said Detective Sargeant Christopher Brown of the CSUF Police Department. \u201cNow they can go directly to the app.\u201d<\/p>\n
The critical focus, Brown emphasized, is all about providing the support and resources to help students stay safe and succeed, regardless of the circumstances. TitanSafety is a simple, powerful tool that aids in this undertaking.<\/p>\n
Brown, who spearheaded the development of TitanSafety with Marissa Garza, CSUF Police public information officer, noted that the app leverages the university\u2019s emphasis on holistic safety, which stresses a \u201ctiered safety response\u201d model that furnishes specific levels of care based on an individual\u2019s unique need.<\/p>\n
\u201cHolistic safety means looking at an individual beyond the moment they\u2019re in crisis,\u201d Brown said. \u201cNot every situation requires a police officer. Safety means different things to different people, and some don\u2019t feel comfortable calling the police for help. \u2026 So, this new application employs holistic safety by putting all of these different resources at the students\u2019 fingertips, to help them with whatever safety need they have.\u201d<\/p>\n
To illustrate the power of TitanSafety, one key element of the app, the Virtual Safety Escort, provides users with greater peace of mind while walking from one area of the campus to another. Using the app\u2019s geolocation function, it informs the user how long their walk will take. \u201cWhen they start their trip with the Virtual Safety Escort, they have immediate access to an Emergency Call button that, when pressed, connects them to 911 dispatch and gives us the specific location of their device,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIt\u2019s what we call a \u2018mini Blue Phone.\u2019 \u201d (Blue Phones, used in emergencies, are located in buildings, elevators and light poles throughout the CSUF campus; a blue light flashes whenever they\u2019re used.)<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone using the Virtual Safety Escort doesn\u2019t reach their destination within the allotted time on the app, or if they forget to turn the app off, it sends an alert to one of our dispatchers, who calls the individual to verify their safety,\u201d Brown said. \u201cAnd if we can\u2019t get ahold of someone (using this feature), we send officers to do an area check.\u201d<\/p>\n
This brings up the issue of privacy, an ever-growing concern in this digital age. TitanSafety users, however, needn\u2019t worry.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrivacy is really important to us,\u201d Brown said. \u201cTitanSafety\u2019s location function is only live after you agree to enable it when you start the application. When you connect with dispatchers, there\u2019s a pop-up feature asking if you\u2019re willing to share your location. Once your call or on-campus trip has ended, that location information goes away.\u201d<\/p>\n
One welcome characteristic of this new application, particularly for those easily confused by digital technology, is its intuitive ease of use. For example, the Compass feature, opened by selecting the app\u2019s Mental Health button, takes the user through a series of simple questions that ultimately furnish online access to the most applicable resources. These resources include dozens of on- and off-campus options: the Mobile Crisis Team, 911 dispatch, Title IX and Gender Equity and the Dean of Students Office, among many others.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompass came about through our partnership with Counseling and Psychological Services,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge boon, because a student may be experiencing something troublesome, but they really don\u2019t know what it is. Compass furnishes options to get the kind of help they need in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown stressed that TitanSafety is also available for use by members of the surrounding community. \u201cIf there\u2019s an emergency as drastic as a hazardous chemical spill or an active shooter, we want to make sure that community members can contact us in a timely manner,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, this app doubles as a community notification system.\u201d<\/p>\n
TitanSafety can be downloaded for free at Apple\u2019s App Store, Google Play or iFullerton, the university\u2019s primary mobile app.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really excited about this,\u201d Brown said. \u201cIt\u2019s a way to communicate with our student body, our staff and our faculty in a manner that we haven\u2019t done before. And we\u2019re looking forward to interacting with the community through this application.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cal State Fullerton students, as well as faculty, staff and visitors, now have access to a comprehensive digital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,2627,7,2628,2306,23,611,77],"class_list":{"0":"post-193306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-headlines","10":"tag-anaheim-news","11":"tag-cal-state-fullerton","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-fullerton","14":"tag-higher-education","15":"tag-local-news","16":"tag-orange-county","17":"tag-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}