I was a volunteer phone responder for a (smaller) state Suicide Prevention Hotline, but stopped because of the changes to the organization caused by the 988 transition.
My primary complaint was in the organizational changes made by the non-profit. The amount of funding increased significantly, and while some of it was spent on non-volunteer responders the majority of the funding was spent on new bureaucrats. With the funding, the amount of external organizations we were answerable increased. I was suddenly scolded for behaviors I had been doing for years before. Things like calls taking longer than fifteen minutes (when we had lines open, and I am talking to a person in crisis), or me failing to collect enough demographic information from distressed individuals. I didn't want to adapt, and they were more than happy to pay someone $12/hr that will follow orders more closely.
There were a lot of great things that came from the 988 transition. For one, cell phone calls are now routed based on the location of the cell phone, where previous they were routed by the area code of the cellphone number. Another thing, is it did lead to increased call volume. I bet the combination of increased calls, with all calls routing to centers familiar with local resources, drastically increased the amount of detentions coming from suicide hotlines.
There was a core of highly skilled volunteers that is now entirely gone over the last 2 years. She still volunteers because she wants to be there if a teen calls.
This is emotionally draining work when done right and it shouldn’t be done full time by 20 year olds.
A friend of mine is doing this now, after being helped herself by an operator times ago. She's giving back now that she's in a better place and yeah I'm... impressed too.
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I was a volunteer phone responder for a (smaller) state Suicide Prevention Hotline, but stopped because of the changes to the organization caused by the 988 transition.
My primary complaint was in the organizational changes made by the non-profit. The amount of funding increased significantly, and while some of it was spent on non-volunteer responders the majority of the funding was spent on new bureaucrats. With the funding, the amount of external organizations we were answerable increased. I was suddenly scolded for behaviors I had been doing for years before. Things like calls taking longer than fifteen minutes (when we had lines open, and I am talking to a person in crisis), or me failing to collect enough demographic information from distressed individuals. I didn't want to adapt, and they were more than happy to pay someone $12/hr that will follow orders more closely.
There were a lot of great things that came from the 988 transition. For one, cell phone calls are now routed based on the location of the cell phone, where previous they were routed by the area code of the cellphone number. Another thing, is it did lead to increased call volume. I bet the combination of increased calls, with all calls routing to centers familiar with local resources, drastically increased the amount of detentions coming from suicide hotlines.
My wife has had the exact same experience.
There was a core of highly skilled volunteers that is now entirely gone over the last 2 years. She still volunteers because she wants to be there if a teen calls.
This is emotionally draining work when done right and it shouldn’t be done full time by 20 year olds.
Saving a life of a child, by volunteering to answer a phone call. That’s impressive.
A friend of mine is doing this now, after being helped herself by an operator times ago. She's giving back now that she's in a better place and yeah I'm... impressed too.