I am very pleased to announce the recent addition of two staff members to the Lifeline team:

Naomi Carey, LMSW joined us at the end of June to take on the role of Special Projects Assistant. Naomi will assume management of all White House letters received by the Lifeline as well as participate in the wide range of projects that the Lifeline undertakes. Prior to joining the team, Naomi worked for over ten years with the NYC based crisis hotline LifeNet as their Resource Information Manager. In this position, she worked to educate staff on the wide range of community resources, standardize their resource database, train staff in clinical interventions and technical call management protocols, and participate in call monitoring according to LifeNet’s quality assurance standards. As a core part of the supervisory team, she contributed to decisions impacting the program’s information management and service delivery. Naomi was also one of two ASIST trainers at LifeNet.

Also coming to us from LifeNet, Karen Carlucci, LCSW has accepted the position of Training Coordinator for the STP division. In her prior position of Director of LifeNet Operations, Karen was responsible for the development and implementation of program standards, clinical protocols and skill enhancement among staff. She devised and implemented procedures to improve the supervision and coaching of the crisis center specialists while overseeing the program’s call monitoring process and supervisory staff. She also developed screening and interviewing tools to assist in hiring reliable and clinically sound professionals. In addition to her experience at LifeNet, she has a background in training and organizational development which has included the conducting of needs assessments, curriculum development and performance management, promoting best practices specifically in the call center environment. We believe that Karen will bring a unique skill set to Lifelines STP Division and we are excited to have her on board. Karen will also be teaching a course in Short-Term Therapy and Crisis Intervention this fall at NYU Silver School of Social Work.

Please join me in welcoming both Naomi and Karen to the Lifeline Team!

The National Emergency Number Association (NENA), the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and SAMHSA are initiating a collaboration with the 911 Officer Training Community beginning in late June 2010 to develop a medical dispatch protocol and training guidelines for suicidal callers to 911 Call Centers (Public Service Answering Points, or PSAPs).   The Lifeline is seeking no more than four experienced crisis center trainers to participate in one of two proposed workgroups (e.g., maximum of eight crisis center representatives).

Group 1: will develop and finalize a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) that:  (a) promotes collaboration between local PSAPS and crisis centers; and (b) provides “best practice” guidelines for assisting 911/PSAP suicidal callers.

Group 2: will develop training/education recommendations and materials for 911 call takers responding to suicidal callers, consistent with the SOP.

An oversight group, which will begin discussions in late June, will coordinate and review the work product of both workgroups.

The workgroups will likely commence activities in July 2010.  We will need interested, qualified applicants for workgroup participation to submit their appropriate information for the Lifeline’s consideration no later than June 11^th, 2010.  Details related to applicant qualifications, time commitment, compensation and how to submit your information to Lifeline can be accessed here: National Training Initiative Affecting 911 Call Centers

Lifeline recently upgraded our reporting software Crystal Reports.  Whenever we can, we purchase software through an organization called TechSoup.

Here’s why….

Microsoft Office Professional has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $499

It is available to non-profit organizations at TechSoup for only $16

With budgets so tight lately we all need to save every penny we can and TechSoup can save you a lot.

It’s not just Microsoft Office either, TechSoup has over 500 products in their catalog, both software and hardware.

In order to be eligible to receive donated products from TechSoup your organization must be able to demonstrate non-profit 501(c)(3) status

Click the link below to visit techsoup.org

You can find more ways to save money on members only section of Lifeline’s website. Here

Lifeline will make available an SMS text messaging system for centers that are offering follow-up to high-risk callers. SMS communication is becoming the preferred channel of communication among many Americans and may be a preferred method of receiving follow-up services, as well.

According to a survey conducted by Tekelec, 60% of 45 year olds were found to be just as likely to use SMS as they were to make voice calls from their mobile device. In fact, text messaging is gaining on email as the preferred means of daily international communication with 32% of respondents across all ages preferring SMS compared to 33% for email. Nearly a third of respondents said their use of SMS would increase in 2010. Other research (Bryant et al., 2006) suggests that individuals may be more willing to reveal sensitive information about their thoughts, behaviors and values through electronic means than in person.

The Lifeline will offer centers interested in providing follow-up via text in connection with the new SAMHSA Follow-Up RFA the opportunity to use PPTMS (PreventionPays Text Message Services), a hosted solution offered by Educational Message Services (EMS), a company with over 16 years of experience in developing cutting edge, technologically innovative programs and Heath IT solutions. PPTMS was specifically designed to allow frontline responders to manage instant message-style communication with minimal training, and enable administrators and/or researchers to access up to the minute reports using the same interface. Lifeline has allocated funds to provide this service to a maximum of five centers, but will consider increasing that number based upon demand and budget constraints.

PPTMS offers a secure, web-based, highly customizable application that will enable each center to:

• Manage fully confidential two-way text communication that meets HIPAA Health IT guidelines
• View incoming text messages prioritized according to time received
• Send group messages
• Point and click text message authoring by multiple responders simultaneously, with responder specific routing
• Store all incoming/outgoing messages on a HIPAA secure, redundant server
• Mine and export archived data, including all traffic occurring for the collective or by center
• Access administrative controls that enable blocking/opting-out specific numbers (i.e., prank text messages, so as not to waste precious staff time)
• Pre-program responses to follow-up messages to respond according to your specific criteria
• Have a unique keyword, with administrative and responder access credentials that will provide entry to an individualized database that will only display traffic specific to its assigned keyword

Webinar is posted online. Thank you all for attending and bearing through all the technical difficulties. We will be posting either an audio version or transcript for those that were not able to attend or unable to join us. In the meantime, please do let me know if you have any questions at all about anything we covered or you were hoping to learn more about.

On April 21st, the 43rd American Association of Suicidology Annual Conference commences in Orlando, Fla., providing a great opportunity to connect with other organizations in the field, leading experts and researchers and survivors. We are pleased that several of the Lifeline team will be attending, while many are presenting on a range of topics.

If you aren’t registered, you can learn more and register here. If you are attending, please come by one of our sessions and meet our team:

Read the rest of this entry »

It has been an adventure getting here, but the Lifeline is now delighted to announce the 20 stipend award winners for its first RFP process in this grant’s near 10 year history!

As you likely recall, SAMHSA provided the Lifeline with one-year-only supplemental funds for the purpose of expanding network capacity in response to increasing call volume, largely attributed to growing economic stressors nationwide.  This grant funding directed the Lifeline to conduct a competitive application process for its network crisis centers, through which 20 centers would receive stipends of up to $50,000 each.  Centers would use these funds to: a) increase their call volume capacity by enhancing staffing, equipment, or infrastructure; and b) conduct outreach to those facing severe economic stress or follow-up for those at high risk of suicide.  A total of 53 centers met eligibility requirements, and 32 centers submitted applications, which were subsequently reviewed and scored by a team of 8 independent reviewers.

The Awarded Centers

The winners are listed in the table below.  Please keep in mind that the category headings of “large”, “medium” and “small” centers only apply to the volume of Lifeline calls answered by these centers, and bear no relation to their overall call center volume, funding, staffing or any other factor.

Read the rest of this entry »