Introduction Update: May 22, 2017 Please see Ultimate Guide to Starting a Crisis Line for a much more comprehensive treatment of this same topic! Do you want to start your own suicide hotline, crisis line or helpline? This is an extremely ambitious and admirable goal and I admire you for thinking about your community! Thousands of suicide…
Tag: training
Active Listening on Crisis Lines
The core of emotional support, which is the service provided on crisis lines, is called active listening. Active listening is a special type of listening, distinct from the regular listening we do everyday. Active listening should also be separated from the work that counsellors and therapists do, which is called professional listening. While therapists and counsellors certainly…
What Makes a Good Crisis Line Volunteer
So, you want to become a crisis line, or suicide hotline volunteer. Congratulations! Not a lot of people feel like they’re able to do this work. It’s very difficult to spend hours alone in the middle of the night listening to someone talk about their depression, or about feeling suicidal, relationship issues, or all the…
Interviewing on a Suicide Hotline
Crisis line reference checks and interviews are one part of the process for becoming a volunteer. A reference check usually involves the volunteer coordinator, distress line manager or other individual who is responsible for screening volunteers calling two or three individuals that you have written down (often an academic or employment reference, and then a…
Beginnings of an Online Crisis Chat Service
On June 29th, the Distress Centres of Dufferin/Wellington, Durham, Peel and Toronto joined together to launch an online crisis chat service. Texting through an unadvertised shortcode based on a service in the US or visiting our website provides access to a trained volunteer responder between 2pm and 2am. After running the service for a few…