Crisis Services offers calming voice in times of trouble
Imagine that every time a phone rings, the caller is likely to be troubled, erratic, angry, depressed, maybe even suicidal. It could be a military veteran experiencing post traumatic stress disorder, a laid-off factory worker, a teenager who’s cutting herself, a college student contemplating suicide, an elderly woman distressed by her decimated portfolio …
All those calls, and many more, have funneled into the phone room at Crisis Services for the past 40 years.
“We’ve been the safety net,” said Jessica Pirro, associate director, referring to the fact that someone is at the other end of the line 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
When the agency was founded the underlying principle was that when a person reached the end of their emotional rope, this would be a place that could help them hold on. Its main focus was suicide prevention, responding to the hopelessness that was developing among adolescents and the homelessness among adults.
Since Nov. 12, 1968, the hotline has never gone silent, the staff is proud to say. Even during the Blizzard of ’77 and the October Surprise storms, when most people stayed home and safe, someone got through to work the phone room, still the hub of the operation.
At its founding, a handful of staff members and some college student
volunteers set up shop in the Liberty Building, answering 7,300 calls that first year. The agency moved locations a few times, finally settling at its current home on Main Street near Hertel Avenue. Now the staff numbers about 80, with the same number of volunteers, who mainly answer the phones and also respond to victims of rape and abuse by meeting with them in hospitals and then staying with them through the legal process.
Calls now number more than 100,000 annually and the role of the agency has broadened and evolved to respond to the persistent and urgent needs of the mentally ill, homeless, unemployed. “It’s not just giving a number and we’re done,” said Pirro. “We’re looking for the end result.”
There is on-site emergency intervention for those experiencing a mental health crisis, where a two-person team (sometimes accompanied by police officers) goes to a home to try to stabilize a situation, to get the troubled person into counseling or to have him admitted, sometimes involuntarily, to a hospital psychiatric unit.
There is also a trauma response program to counsel those who have witnessed or somehow experienced a traumatic event, whether it’s suicide or another type of community violence.
So, now, rather than just sitting in the phone room staff members are proactive, visiting local homeless shelters, running workshops for laid-off workers, such as was done recently at American Axle, going into the schools to let students know that help is available, especially through the Kids Helpline and the online service, www.kidscrisis.com . And this reaching out can reach young ones, too.
Staff member Rachel Morrison recounted that when she was at a Buffalo school gathering recently to explain the hot-line, she was approached by two little girls who said they needed to talk about something that was troubling them. “Their eyes just got so big because they needed someone who would listen to them,” said Morrison.
Recently, Crisis Services began an Internet service for youngsters who can link to other Web sites, get onto message boards and have private chat sessions with a counselor. It’s one of only three such programs in the country to offer such chats and most frequently fields questions about cutting, eating disorders and bullying, said Morrison.
“The vast majority of kids who use the Web site say it’s the only way they’d talk to anybody,” said Morrison. “They absolutely wouldn’t call.”
Of late, more adult callers mention their fears about the sinking economy.
“Even our chronic callers, have shifted their focus to talk about the economy,” said Lisa McNeil, coordinator of the Crisis Counseling Program. “We’ve seen a rise in calls in the early evening, after the local news or world news. People call to express anxiety, a fear of losing their house, their retirement money.
“Normally people don’t hear about us,” said McNeil, “but with the current economy we are seeing people who normally wouldn’t call us.”
Also, there is an increase in referrals to food pantries and a greater number of people unemployed for longer periods of time, more arrears in rent payments and more concern about utility shut-off notices.
“It’s not the normal population of homeless people,” said Morrison, supervisor of the Homeless Outreach. “I’m meeting people who say they’ve never been unemployed before.”
Though staff members don’t always know if their work has been successful, sometimes they get small signs that their efforts are appreciated when they receive a thank you note in the mail or a sexual assault victim who was helped volunteers to help others.
As to how the staff manages to maintain its equilibrium when dealing with the troubles of society, Pirro answers: “Well, we have a big coffee machine.”
Besides that, there’s humor, mutual staff support and a sense of mission that they are there to help others, said Pirro.
“We need to make sure everyone is doing well,” she said, “because it can be a situation of life and death. So we need everyone to be on their game at all times.”
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