- How Local Government Can Help Push A Much Needed Emergency Crisis Call Fix. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) are co-sponsors of a bill in the U.S. Senate that would require “calls and messages to the [988] lifeline to be routed by the call center geographically nearest to the caller, rather than by area code, [to] ensure a quicker response by mental health professionals.” Though the bill would require the Federal Communications Commission to “route calls based on the proximity of the caller to the call center,” the bill clarifies that a “caller’s specific location should not be revealed or discernible.”
This change is needed because, as Steve Scauzillo explains for the Los Angeles Daily News, the reliance on “using the cell phone caller’s area code — which is often not the area code where the person lives” means that their call is routed to “health technicians out of their county, or even out of state, instead of sending their call to the nearest clinic where they can receive hands-on treatment.” Getting the call to a mental health professional in the right geographic region is critical because that person “would be familiar with county resources and could send a mobile treatment team if needed.”
In Los Angeles County, the Board of Supervisors voted to endorse the federal bill earlier this month in order to “make sure that anyone who calls 9-8-8 from within Los Angeles County will be routed to the County call center, making sure they get the response they need, including in-person mobile crisis teams when appropriate.” Thus, L.A. County “will send a letter of support to the Senate, [and has pledged] to fight for the bill’s passage.” This show of support from elected officials at the local level is helpful to convey to Members of Congress that this bill is important and worthy of being prioritized for a vote this year.
In addition to geo-locating calls to 988, the Padilla / Tillis bill would require “carriers to allow calls and texts to 9-8-8 even if the plan is inactive or the carrier is experiencing service interruptions or failures, just as they currently do for 911 calls.” It would also require “multi-line systems like hotel and office phones to support the direct dialing of 9-8-8; rather than requiring a caller to dial 9 or another number before dialing 9-8-8.” - 9-8-8 Crisis Call Takers Want More Training. “An estimated 10,000 to 11,000 counselors work at more than 200 call centers nationwide, fielding calls from people experiencing anxiety, depression, or suicidal thoughts,” Colleen Deguzman writes in Popular Science. The article centers around an organization called Crisis Crowd, which works on “empowering and enabling connections among crisis hotline staff.”
Crisis Crowd conducted a survey of crisis call center staff to learn about challenges and opportunities in the profession. The need for more—and more specialized—training is a major theme in the responses. Here are three examples:- “Some counselors said they had received training only in talking to people experiencing suicidal thoughts and not how to deal with other mental health issues, such as anxiety attacks, substance intoxication and withdrawal, and mood disorders.”
- “[Some counselors] reported having finished their training without ever getting the opportunity to hear a trained counselor handle a call or to see how a trained chat counselor approached a real chat conversation.”
- “Others were never engaged in full-conversation role-plays in their training, and first experienced what it was like to conduct a crisis conversation when they went on shift for the first time, to help real people in real crisis.”
Taking a step back, “most counselors in the survey—including all who were dissatisfied with their on-the-job training—received that training in four weeks or less.” Beyond the initial training, “many counselors are not offered any form of continuing education over their months or years of service … Others, in contrast, receive ongoing learning every week.”
These results strongly suggest the need for more—and more rigorous—training and continuing education for crisis call takers.
Policymakers should consider implementing training that includes:
- Coverage of a “wide range of calls of varying levels of intensity” that call takers are likely to receive;
- The opportunity to “listen to real crisis calls or read transcripts of real crisis chats,” and
- The chance to “role-play simulated crisis calls and chats as part of their training.”
“Vibrant Emotional Health, the company that administers 988, recently created online, self-paced training courses for crisis counselors, [which are] designed to assist local centers in delivering training and supporting crisis counselor skill development.” But this is also an important area where local officials should help set minimum content, duration, and quality guidelines.
- Using Phone Bill Fees To Fund 988 Crisis Line. For Oregon Public Broadcasting, Nathan Wilk reports on a “new tax on Oregon’s phone bills… an additional 40 cents per phone line each month and another 40 cents when purchasing a prepaid plan… [that is] providing money for the state’s 988 suicide prevention and crisis line… that’s expected to generate $33 million for the state by mid-2025.” When the 988 services are fully funded, “leftover tax revenue will go towards Oregon’s mobile response teams.” Oregon, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, is one of just “eight states that have enacted legislation to sustain 988 through phone fees.” Meanwhile, a new poll suggests that voters in Alabama want their state to become the ninth. For AL.com, Mike Cason reports that “a survey of 620 Alabama voters” conducted by the “polling firm Cygnal” showed that most voters supported a proposal to add a “50-cent user fee” to phone bills to support 988—once they were given information about what the crisis center does.