Crisis Text Line provides comprehensive training to Crisis Counselors To date we have trained over 65,000 Counselors in the US and over 88,000 collectively with our partners in Canada, the UK and Ireland. The 30+ hours of training include de-escalation techniques, empathy, active listening, collaborative problem-solving, cultural competence, and safety planning. Building this network has allowed us to mobilize a diverse, critical mass of everyday people willing to help others in crisis and equip them with training grounded in the best that behavioral and mental health has to offer. In addition, new research indicates that our training imparts skills, resources, and experiences that cascade enduring benefits for our volunteer Crisis Counselors and others in their families, workplaces, and communities.

Our proprietary tech platform underpins all of work. We lead with innovation to ensure we can address the mental health crisis at scale. Our unique platform allows for our on-staff mental health supervisors to oversee more than 20 simultaneous conversations, allowing us to offer 24/7 support to anyone, anywhere for free. We use Machine Learning and data analytics to triage conversations in order of severity, not time – like a mental health emergency room. 

In order for us to provide more people in crisis with mental health support more quickly, we continually need to refine, expand and enhance our Platform technology. Current areas of focus include improving the accuracy and speed of our triage and de-escalation-oriented intervention; expanding to additional languages and countries; identifying the rapidly-evolving language of suicide and self-harm; monitoring the clinical quality of conversations in real-time; and ensuring our volunteer Crisis Counselors, Supervisors, and texters are all optimally supported.

Latinx communities in the US are disproportionately affected by mental illness and face a lack of access to culturally competent services that offer relief. To help meet this need, in 2021 we launched the first bilingual, bicultural Spanish-language text-based mental health and crisis intervention service in the US. Our bilingual volunteer Crisis Counselors receive additional training with a dedicated focus on cultural competence to truly meet people where they are. We have also developed a library of over 200 Spanish-language resources readily available for texters. Our goal is to build a virtual bilingual community that helps to fill the existing gap in mental health resources for Latinx communities.

In order for a Masters of Social Work (MSW) student to graduate, they need to successfully complete between 200-600 practicum hours. This traditional in-person, full-time model is often a barrier to many MSW students who also have other responsibilities and further slows the pipeline of MSW graduates into the workforce. To address this problem, Crisis Text Line designed a national, remote-based Student Learning Practicum Program that allows students to complete their practicum hours virtually through the Crisis Text Line platform. Since the Program launched in 2020, it has achieved an impressive 90%+ completion rate – adding hundreds of empathetic, trained, highly diverse professionals to the mental health workforce.

Crisis Text Line produces and provides free downloadable digital toolkits for students, educators, and parents in both English and Spanish. The content we create leverages the deep knowledge base we’ve built over 10 years supporting over 9 million people in need. These easily accessible mental health resources include coping tips, videos and shareable posts for youth, teens, and college students along with school administrators, educators, and parents.

We have a longstanding commitment to produce and share insights grounded in our 10 years of conversational data for the benefit of everyone, everywhere through our Research & Impact collaborations. Crisis Text Line both produces in-house research and collaborates with researchers worldwide to openly share insights, learnings, and analytical content with community groups and policymakers in order to increase access to mental well-being support,  improve the global crisis intervention and mental health space as a whole, and improve our service.

Crisis Text Line advocates for expanded access to mental health care on a state, regional, and national level to improve the mental health continuum of care and ensure the system is implemented in an equitable way. Our public policy focus is also on mental health resources and advocacy opportunities for youth and marginalized populations, including BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities where the need is greater than for the general population. This includes successfully advocating for Spanish text/chat to 988, the inclusion of Crisis Text Line’s number on the back of student IDs (grades 6-12) in 13 states, and current efforts to include these resources on IDs at the college level.

In addition, our Campus Advocates are students who spread the word regarding our free mental health support and crisis intervention service, and are connected to our digital mental health resources that they share with their peers. Since it began in 2021, this program has expanded rapidly through organic outreach and currently has more than 635+ diverse students (51% identifying as BIPOC & 36% identifying as LGBTQ+) participating across 350+ schools nationwide. Many Campus Advocates have also elected to become Counselors.