Crisis Call Centers Staffing Up; LECs Finishing Work as 988 Deadline Looms

Crisis call centers around the U.S. expect a slow rise in National Suicide Prevention Lifeline traffic once Lifeline's 988 calling capability goes nationwide later this month. Local exchange carriers are in various stages of readiness for the July 16 deadline.

TDS spent the past two years building infrastructure to accommodate 10-digit dialing and to implement 988 in all its networks so it can provide 10-digit dialing in the 19 states and 28 area codes it serves, said Drew Petersen, senior vice president-corporate affairs, in a statement. TDS said its network translation team spent more than 500 hours to enable 10-digit dialing in those markets, completing the work in May. It said it's informing customers about 988 via newsletters, blogs and social media posts.

Lumen emailed it "is on track to be able to route 988 calls by the July 16 deadline."

Call centers that already handled Lifeline calls made via its traditional 800-273-8255 number have the technological capacity to handle 988 calls, said Pat Morris, president of National Association of Crisis Center Directors. She said Volunteers of America Western Washington, the crisis call center services provider where she's senior director-behavioral health, has tripled its staff in anticipation of a soft 988 launch. "The last thing we want is for somebody to try it and it takes them too long to talk to a live person," she said. That ramp-up in staffing necessitated looking for remote workers out of state, she said. The call center was moving from a facilities-based, hard-wire phone system to a cloud-based one when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which forced it to accelerate that to enable remote counselors, she said.

Morris said crisis call centers in states where there's still a question mark about how 988 services will be funded might have difficulties ramping up staffing due to budget issues. “If you don't have the money to increase your staff … you are pretty much stuck," she said, noting increasing the volunteer base as an alternative isn't easy.

With 988 not getting a big promotional push but a soft launch, Texas' Integral Care anticipates a slow ramp-up of 988 calls, texts and chats, Chief Operations Officer Dawn Handley said. That's to Integral's advantage, she said. "You want to be able to do it slowly so you can adjust to the capacity" and work out any kinks, she said.

Integral began picking up Lifeline calls in 2012, and with that it also started serving seven other counties beyond its original Austin and Travis counties, Handley said. With 988, it will expand its county coverage again, she said. Integral has been ramping up staffing to cover that anticipated additional traffic, with the state expected to provide funding toward the added capacity, she said.

With the major promotional push for 988 expected in 2023, there will still be some spike in traffic, said Andrew Irwin, chief operating officer for Solari, which provides crisis call center services in Arizona and Oklahoma. The "public is going to hear about it," he said. He said Arizona traditionally has heavily promoted its crisis response system, so Lifeline call volume there might not spike much with the introduction of 988, but Oklahoma could have a bigger jump. Paid Solari staffing has ramped up in both states, he said.

The start of a new hotline usually isn't immediately followed by a big uptake in use, said Theresa Buhse, executive director of New York’s Long Island Crisis Center (LICC). "It takes time for the number to get out there and for people to start using it." Given 988's soft launch, most crisis centers are building up capacity to handle more calls, she said.

LICC's call center counselors are volunteers, and it has an answer rate of Lifeline calls of about 70%-75%, with the rest bouncing to other call centers, Buhse said. With Lifeline wanting a 90% answer rate, LICC started training people earlier this month to have them ready in August to supplement night and weekend staffing, Buhse said. "We are not going to be ready by July 16" if there is a large influx of calls, she said.

Most traffic to California's Contra Costa Crisis Center comes via calls, but it's ready to accept texts, emailed Executive Director Tom Tamura. He said it's in the process of adding chat capabilities. "We had chat available years ago, but discontinued due to low utilization," he said.

Pennsylvania's Centre Helps is "pretty well staffed and possibly overstaffed," so an increase in Lifeline call traffic might easily be absorbed, said Executive Director Denise McCann. Staffed almost entirely by volunteers, Centre Helps has some budgeting capacity to pay for supplementing its night, weekend and holiday shifts if needed, she said. She said Lifeline calls currently get routed by area code of the caller, not location, and Penn State student calls often get routed elsewhere instead of Centre Helps, located in State College. Geolocation of Lifeline calls would likely be a bigger add to Centre Helps call traffic, she said. The FCC is studying Lifeline geolocation issues (see 2206080058).