Hey guys,
As you know we are very excited about our opportunity to win $1 million in the Chase Community Giving contest to aid the start-up of IMAlive, the first ever live online crisis network. We’ve invited our partner at Kristin Brooks Hope Center (1-800-SUICIDE) to share a bit of the ideas behind IMAlive and why we see this as such a valuable new program.
Thanks for caring. Don’t forget that you have until January 22nd to vote, so log onto Facebook and help us today!
With Hope,
Team TWLOHA
By Reese Butler, founder of 1-800-SUICIDE
Imagine being in crisis and not knowing where to turn. You are panicked, short of breath, and the pain is so palpable that you cannot feel or think about anything else. The terror of picking up the phone to call a hotline not knowing who will answer you prevents you from doing so. Or, even if you have the courage to pick up the phone, the sound of the person’s voice scares you and you hang up. We know this happens because over 30% of all people who call our hotlines do just that—they hang up as soon as they hear the human voice.
More importantly, we recognize the technological age we find ourselves in today and we know that millions of people in crisis will never pick up the phone. We believe that IMAlive is part of the solution to the problem. IMAlive is a live online crisis network that uses instant messaging to respond to people in crisis. People need a safe place to go 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Imagine again you’re that person in crisis, and you’ve started a chat on IMAlive.
The blinking cursor starts to move.
“I am here for you now.”
“I have been where you are now before, and I survived. I can help you get through this.”
Today an opportunity like this does not exist. But with your help we can deliver this miracle of hope and help by the fall of 2010. As the founder of 1-800-SUICIDE, I know firsthand how devastating it is to lose someone to suicide. In 1998 my wife Kristin committed suicide in a psychiatric ward 36 hours into her stay there. At the time there was nothing going on in the detection and prevention of postpartum depression, and very little being done in the field of suicide prevention. I was shocked to discover that there was not even a national hotline that would route a suicidal caller to help at a local crisis center.
Several months later I received a check for $34,045 from Kristin’s employers (her company death benefit). I decided to donate the money to start a foundation to prevent suicides like Kristin’s, and the first program was 1-800-SUICIDE.
Since that day we have helped to route more than 3 million callers to help and hope.
In 2005, the federal government released a study upon completion of a review of our network and our hotline. They spent three years and over $3,000,000.00 to learn that genuine empathy was the leading reason why our network worked. It also painfully revealed that when a crisis line worker was burned out and/or poorly trained callers suffered. Thankfully, 85% of the callers had good outcomes, and the other 15% were either neutral or negative. To read the study click here:
In partnership with To Write Love on Her Arms, and with the help of the QPR Institute and the PostSecret Community we now have the ability through technology to make sure 100% of all crisis line workers are properly trained, certified and have shown empathy in the process. The coolest part about this for the Hopeline is that the volunteer does not need to travel to a local community crisis center but can do the entire training and certification online! For the thousands of volunteers who wanted to help but lived of miles from the nearest crisis center, this program will be the first gateway to be able to help the millions of people in crisis.
We are poised to create the world’s first virtual crisis center. When it launches it will also be the first crisis center where 100% of the volunteers are trained and certified (including about 50 hours of suicide risk assessment and intervention skills, as well as having been confirmed in the ability to show empathy).
This week we have an extraordinary opportunity to win one million dollars to help us reach our goals for this program: to train 1,000 certified volunteers, perfect the instant message interface, and hire and train the supervisors needed to assist the volunteers. IMAlive can begin a revolution in crisis intervention not just in the United States but worldwide as well. The Internet knows no boundaries and neither do we.
Help us achieve our dream and vision for building the world’s first virtual crisis support network. Click here to vote in the Chase Community Giving.