There are a number of tools that can be used to monitor workers on your helpline. While we all want to believe that workers will do everything they are supposed to do, sometimes people can find themselves falling below the standard you’ve set. Whether workers are using computers to access websites unrelated to the business…
Category: Counselling and Service Delivery
Building Your Support Network
Support networks are an extremely important protective factor in working with people who are suicidal. Support networks are first, internally, our beliefs, attitudes and strengths, and then externally the people in our lives who we can rely on for emotional support; finally, it’s the community agencies that you rely on for more intensive, or emergency…
Professional Development for Helpline Workers
As helpline workers, one of the most important duties we have outside of our actual work on the lines is to continue regular training. Training can help reinforce existing skills in areas such as emotional support, suicide risk assessment and crisis intervention, but also teach you skills in areas you may not have experience in…
What is Social Listening?
Social listening is an area of customer (or client)-relationship management that, as the name implies, involves listening to social networks. This is important both for for-profit companies who want to know if their customers are having poor experiences on social media and non-profits who want to make sure that they are serving their customers the…
Conducting Psychosocial Assessments
As a Social Service Worker student I spent 8 months as a Bereavement and Palliative Care Case Manager with Durham Hospice, an organization that provides counselling, peer support and friendly visiting individually and in group sessions for individuals suffering from life-limiting illnesses (in particular those with less than a year to live) and those who…