Crisis Text Line

Crisis Text Line

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Founded	2013
Founder	Nancy Lublin
Founded at	New York, NY
Purpose	Crisis Intervention
Headquarters	New York City, United States

Crisis Text Line is a United States not-for-profit organization providing free crisis intervention via SMS message. The organization's services are available 24 hours a day every day, and throughout the US.

As of May 12, 2016, Crisis Text Line has processed 17,293,586 text messages.

History

Crisis Text Line was conceptualized as an extension of Do Something's mobile interactions with its members. Do Something CEO Nancy Lublin states that as members increasingly sent deeply personal text messages, she saw a need for a separate channel for these messages in order to better assist the young people sending them. In public appearances, Lublin specifically cites a series of texts reading "He won't stop raping me... It's my dad." as an impetus for creating Crisis Text Line.

The service was given a quiet launch in August 2013 through a text message to Do Something members in Chicago and El Paso, and was soon being used by texters in every United States area code. Today, 350 people text the service daily, most of whom discovered the service through word-of-mouth.

In July 2015, it was announced that Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile would be waiving fees for use of the service, and that texts to Crisis Text Line would not appear on billing records. Publicity for the move, including a high-profile blog post by Richard Branson, prompted AT&T to follow suit.

In September 2015, Crisis Text Line announced via the Do Something blog that it would be taking steps to become a resource for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. A text message to the service reading "I can't call suicide hotlines because I can't hear, so I was hoping I could use this service" was mentioned as an inspiration for this announcement. Specifically, the blog post mentioned accessible training for Crisis Counselors, and creating education around working with Deaf texters.

Chief Data Scientist Bob Filbin was highlighted in The Chronicle of Philanthropy as one of their 40 Under 40 for his work using data to inform Crisis Text Line's work. Speaking about the difference between Crisis Text Line's corpus and other mental health data, he said, "This is people in their greatest moment of crisis. Most of the other data on mental health and crisis is survey data, which is collected after the fact. It’s people remembering."

Crisis counselors

Crisis Counselors are all at least eighteen years old, and are selected through an application process. Only 30% of applicants are accepted. Once selected, they are required to submit a background check, complete thirty-four hours of training, and pass a final evaluation. Graduated Crisis Counselors commit to four hours on the platform weekly for a year.

Leadership

In order to ensure best practices and effectiveness in training, counseling, technological development, and organizational structure, Crisis Text Line consults with both a board of directors and an expert National Advisory Board.

The board of directors includes Lublin, danah boyd, PhD, the principal researcher at Microsoft research, and David Drummond of Google.

The National Advisory Board includes experts in mental health advocacy and in the hotline space, including Alison Malmon, founder of Active Minds, John Draper, PhD, director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline network, John MacPhee, executive director and CEO of The Jed Foundation, and Christine Moutier, Chief Medical Officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

James Wright, MS, serves as a Special Advisor. Wright is the Public Health Advisor of the SAMHSA Center for Mental Health Services.

Data and CrisisTrends.org

A map depicting frequency of anxiety in the United States, made using Crisis Text Line data and available on crisistrends.org in August 2014.

Crisistrends.org is a product of Crisis Text Line that, using data derived from the text messages received, compiles and provides information about crises in the United States. Describing potential uses of this data, Lublin told Glamour, "If you know anxiety peaks from 7:00 to 9:00 pm, schools could schedule their guidance counselors to be available then".

Crisistrends.org was launched in August 2014.

In December 2015, Crisis Text Line made headlines by releasing data that implied that bullying and harassment against Muslims was on the rise. Lublin was quoted as saying, "These political scare tactics have real implications on everyday Americans."

Data on CrisisTrends.org are anonymized.

Predictive data

Lublin told Wired that the data are helping counselors by using keywords to predict the subject matter of a conversation. A profile reads: "As the software analyzes incoming texts, it can send counselors targeted messages like, 'There’s a 99 percent chance this texter has a substance abuse issue. Here are three rehab programs within the texter’s area code.'"

Enclave data

In 2016, Crisis Text Line launched enclave data, available to university researchers and research institutions. Interested researchers are able to apply for selective pulls of conversation data. Texters have the option to opt out completely of being included in this data.

International

Crisis Text Line says that efforts to expand internationally are underway. Current steps include developing accreditation standards and establishing key international partnerships. The organization is inviting interested parties outside of the United States to connect.

The Crisis Text Line International Summit took place November 18–19 in New York City.

External links

• Official Website
• Application and Training Platform
• DoSomething.org