Crisis Hotline Volunteering

[maplecookie]

Hello,

I am probably taking a gap year soon and learned of crisis hotline volunteering which I am interested in participating in. I was wondering if anybody had any experience with it that could share.

Also, while I am glad they give a training course and you are under a certified supervisor, I am worried about how prepared you become from just that since I have no background in mental health counseling etc.

Any insight would be great thank you!

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[mistafab]

Hey - it is a wonderful experience. The training is substantial enough that you will be prepared by the time you start taking calls. Best of luck!

 

[maplecookie]

Hey - it is a wonderful experience. The training is substantial enough that you will be prepared by the time you start taking calls. Best of luck!

That’s great to hear thank you!

 

[rathoarder]

Yes, one of the things that I like about crisis hot line training is that you learn how to deal with distressed people, no matter what type of distress they're in. This is an excellent skill to help you begin in your new career.

 

[maplecookie]

Hey - it is a wonderful experience. The training is substantial enough that you will be prepared by the time you start taking calls. Best of luck!

Yes, one of the things that I like about crisis hot line training is that you learn how to deal with distressed people, no matter what type of distress they're in. This is an excellent skill to help you begin in your new career.

Just an additional question:
The particular activity I was looking at was "Crisis Text Line" which as the name implies is via texting. Was your experience(s) with texting or actual calling and if possible, can you say which particular organization it was (there seems to be quite a few more out there than I originally thought!) and your thoughts on texting response vs phone response. Thank you!

 

[mistafab]

I won’t give you the information about the particular organization it was. However, I did both call and text depending on what I wanted to do. There was a separate training to do text crisis counseling because, as you can imagine, many nuances you rely on are lost over the web... many are already lost over the phone.

Just an additional question:
The particular activity I was looking at was "Crisis Text Line" which as the name implies is via texting. Was your experience(s) with texting or actual calling and if possible, can you say which particular organization it was (there seems to be quite a few more out there than I originally thought!) and your thoughts on texting response vs phone response. Thank you!