Crisis hotline

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A crisis hotline is a phone number people can contact for emergency call counseling immediately, usually by trained volunteers. The first service was established in the UK in 1953 and such hotlines have existed in most major cities in the English-speaking world since at least the mid-1970s. Originally formed to help those who plan to commit suicide, many have expanded their mandate to deal with the emotional crisis more generally. Similar phone lines operate to help people in other circumstances, including rape survivors, victims of intimidation, fleeing children, trafficking victims, and people who identify as LGBT or intersex.

Video Crisis hotline

Histori

Such a service began in 1953, when Chad Varah, a British vicar, established the service of The Samaritans, who soon established branches across Britain. The first Samaritan Branch in the United States was founded in Boston in 1974. In addition to Boston, there are currently Samaritan branches in Falmouth, Massachusetts (serving Cape Cod and Islands), Merrimack Valley, Fall River/New Bedford area. Outside Massachusetts, there are branches in New York City, Providence, Hartford, Albany, and Keene, New Hampshire.

In the United States, the Los Angeles Conservation Prevention Center was founded in 1958 and was the first in the country to provide a 24-hour crisis prevention line and use community volunteers to provide hotline services. San Francisco Suicide Prevention started the "Call Bruce" hotline in 1962.

A similar service, Lifeline, was established in Australia in 1963.

Other services, volunteer-managed crisis assistance channels, Lifelink Samaritans Bag. Inc., originally named Launceston Lifelink, was established in Tasmania in 1968 by concerned citizens of Launceston, Tasmania who decided to make a telephone service based on the principles of The Samaritans. The reason is people often become suicides because they can not discuss their emotional pain with family and friends.

This service provides emotional support 24 hours a day to people throughout Tasmania and has no religious affiliation whatsoever. The organization is a member of Befrienders Worldwide and has a "twin" relationship with Northampton Samaritans in the UK. Lifelink Samaritans is the oldest telephone calling service in Tasmania and the fourth oldest in Australia and receives at least 5,000 calls per year.

Maps Crisis hotline

Criticisms and logistical issues

One criticism of a suicide hotline in the past is that those who are determined to commit suicide are unlikely to call one. Also, those with social anxiety may not have the emotional resources to do so. To date, there is no evidence that the presence of a suicide hotline reduces the incidence of suicide. However, a 2007 study showed the opposite, because people's thoughts about suicide decreased during calls to the crisis line, and decreased for several weeks after their call. These callers are commonly known as frequent, chronic, numerous or repetitive callers. A recent systematic review of the research on callers often encountered on crisis aid channels finds the need to better understand this group of callers and why they continue to use the helpline.

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Phone consultation

Some countries govern the use of the term "counselor". Counseling phones and crisis hotlines provide similar phone support services, and both usually receive crisis and non-crisis calls. In the United States, many campuses have established telephone counseling stations served by student volunteers to keep up with the high demand placed in college mental health services. This hotline serves callers in crisis, but also serves to give listening ears to people who "just need to talk." Typically, hotlines are managed by volunteers, and are not meant to replace long-term professional counseling services. They are more aimed at bringing callers through urgent situations. Such hotlines exist at the University of Maryland, University of Minnesota, Tufts University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Drexel University, Caldwell University, and Texas A & M University.

The term "emotional support helpline" is sometimes used - which does not imply crisis or counseling, and may include email and text messages. Such services enable wider dissemination of resources for people facing mental health crises.

With developments in mobile phones, the use of text or SMS (short message service) has been exploited by counseling services. Youthline, a youth-oriented crisis aid channel in New Zealand began providing a text message counseling aid line in 2004

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Online help, phone, TDD/TTY and SMS

Examples include:

The Volunteers Emotional Support Helplines (VESH) represent 1200 member centers in 61 countries. It has been formed by:

• Befrienders Worldwide (managed by Samaritans UK)
• IFOTES - International Phone Emergency Services Federation,
• Lifeline International

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See also

• Hotline
• Complaint system
• List of counseling topics
• List of lines of the suicide crisis
• Counseling by phone

2013 documentary

• Crisis Hotline: Veteran Press 1

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References

Source of the article : Wikipedia