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Founded | 2013 |
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Founders | Nancy Lublin Bob Filbin |
Founded at | New York, NY |
Purpose | Mental health support and crisis intervention |
Headquarters | New York City, United States |
Key people | Dena Trujillo (CEO) |
Crisis Text Line is a global nonprofit organization providing free and confidential text-based mental health support and crisis intervention by texting HOME to 741741. [1] The organization launched in 2013, and its services are available 24 hours a day throughout the United States, Canada, UK, and Ireland. As of March 2024, the organization reported that it had supported over 9 million support conversations. [2]
Crisis Text Line was conceptualized as a result of DoSomething's mobile interactions with its members. [3] Nancy Lublin, DoSomething's former CEO, started Crisis Text Line after members of the DoSomething organization began reaching out via text for personal support. [3] The service launched in 2013, as the first text-based nationwide hotline. [1] By 2015, the text line was being contacted daily by more than 350 texters-in-crisis. [4]
People who are in any crisis can reach out to the text line and expect to be connected with a crisis counselor. Text messaging has been shown to be an effective way to do crisis counseling due to its popularity with its target young audience, and the anonymity it provides. [22] If the texter is at imminent risk of suicide or harm and is unwilling to separate themselves from the means of harm and create a safety plan, emergency services may be contacted in order to ensure the safety of the texter. [22]
The text line uses a triage system, in which conversations are assessed by an algorithm for severity and queued accordingly, as opposed to being queued chronologically. [23] This identifies the most vulnerable texters (including those at imminent risk for suicide). [24]
Crisis Text Line’s service is powered by volunteer Crisis Counselors who receive 30 hours of free comprehensive training that is virtual, interactive, self-paced and offered in English and Spanish. Clinical supervisors with degrees in mental health-related fields monitor every conversation, give feedback in real-time and provide additional support when necessary for volunteer Crisis Counselors. [1] The training is also intended to help volunteers support their family and friends as well as navigate their own mental health. [23]
Crisistrends.org was launched in August 2014 to collect and analyze anonymized texting data derived from the activities of the Crisis Text Line platform. [4] The data is used to display crisis trends according to texter gender, age, race, and ethnicity. It is shared with the public to help decrease the stigma around mental health support. [2] Research agencies and institutions also can have access to this data for research purposes. [25]
Crisis Text Line has many open data partnerships, one of them being a collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that aims to predict and prevent veteran suicides. [26]