I’m trying to get the word out about this important resource for our kids. I know mine are appalled at the idea of making a phone call, so giving out a crisis phone number isn’t very effective.
To access the crisis text line, they simply text HOME to 741741 and a trained volunteer will respond. Their website: https://www.crisistextline.org/purpose/
Please pass around this information. I haven’t seen it mentioned much except through NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and I think it’s important. Thanks!
I was a volunteer crisis counselor for the Crisis Text Line for a year. It was extremely satisfying and inspired me to go back to school to get my MSW. Although most of the crisis counselors are in their 20s, there’s a sizeable contingent of 50+ people who want to make a difference.
They ask for a commitment of approximately 4 hours a week for a year–can be calculated as 16 hours a month or whatever–before you begin training. Training and volunteering take place anywhere you have a computer with a good Internet connection.
This is a thread with potentially life saving information. Thank you. I am an admin of a university parent FB group. May I copy your post there? I won’t include your name. Or I could just include the website.
i became friends with my son’s roommates mom. She called me last year saying that her son’s best friend had died by suicide. Devastating.
There have been three suicides in three years of high schoolers in our county. It’s tragic. It’s heartbreaking. It’s epidemic.
My D volunteered with this group for about a year but stopped because she felt that she was not being effective and was getting too emotionally involved. Her bf’s sister, who is a psych major hoping to become a clinician, still does it and finds it incredibly rewarding. She, herself, deals with anxiety and mild depression, and told me that helping other people helps her to feel stronger.
I am going to give the number to S17 before he returns to school. Although I don’t worry about him, he has mentioned to me that some of his friends at school have struggled with mental health issues and it is my hope that he would share the information or use it himself if I am wrong about how he is feeling.
I don’t know what this means! Text HOME to 741741 in US That means that young people may have an easier time accessing this…as was perhaps intended.
My father killed himself. He was intent on suicide and would never have sought help. He was discharged from the hospital still sick. At home he was watched closely, but took advantage of a 15 minute lapse in supervision.
For many, I am sure this is an invaluable service and saves many lives.
But for some who are seriously, deeply, or chronically suicidal, we need to fight for longer hospitalizations, and access to better treatments. The mental health system is ruled by insurance, and inadequate at best.
@compmom the Crisis Text Line is by no means the panacea for mental health issues in the United States. But it can help reduce the number of suicides for sure, especially among young people for whom suicide is often an impulsive act. Its mission is to help texters get through their immediate crisis. Every conversation includes a suicide screening–are you thinking about suicide? Have you thought about how you would do it? Do you have the means (pills, poison, gun, knife) to do it? Do you have a timetable for when you wll do it? If the answer to the final question is less than 24 hours, a supervisor is flagged and the conversation is observed (with much support for the crisis counselor) to decide whether the supervisor will call the 911 authority for the area code on the phone and initiate an active rescue.
Of course there are many other crises that are the subject of most conversations. Lots of people wanting to stop cutting or other self-harm. People looking for food help or medical care.Many teens who have something going on that they have to tell their parents about and need support to do so. Victims of bullying and/or sexual harassment or abuse. And it’s not just young people–I had conversations with parents who were desperate dealing with their kids alone and just needed a sympathetic ear/eye/hand to make it through the day. People of all ages worried about chronic health conditions, physical or psychiatric. Lots of texters who feel inconsolable after a breakup. Domestic violence sufferers.
There’s a very well-vetted list of referrals for counselors to recommend, and the training covers every kind of issue a counselor will face.
@compmom, we could definitely start a new thread on how to reduce suicides in this country. I just thought the crisis text line information was important enough to warrant its own post. TBH, I don’t think the number would have helped my nephew. And my older son would never use it. My middle son, however, called a help line frequently when he was at his worst and it WAS helpful to him. It’s just one tool of many.
@Materof2 feel free to copy whatever you would like. I have shared it on my Facebook page, also. Any method of getting out the information is great.
@oldmom4896 thanks for your post. It’s cool that you volunteered for them. I heard a presentation at a NAMI Maine conference about the service - the number of texts they’ve received has just exploded over the last few years.
@MaineLonghorn, Crisis Text Line has a Facebook page (of course!) which you can “like” so periodic messages from them appear on your Facebook timeline.
Where you’d use a phone number to text to, type 741741. It’s a short code accepted by virtually all cell carriers and, by the way, virtually all carriers and accounts that charge per text waive the fee.
Type the word HOME, and you get an automated response immediately.