988 Launch Driving Growth in Crisis Center Volume, With More Expected

Crisis call centers around the nation are seeing increases in traffic since the official launch of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (see 2207150036), with steeper growth expected to follow. Some crisis centers said the promotion of 988 for any mental health crisis intervention and not just suicide prevention will likely be a big driver of increased communications volumes over time.

Multiple crisis centers and USTelecom told us they hadn't heard of people making calls or texts to 988 experiencing problems being routed to the Lifeline. USTelecom emailed it "is proud of the work carriers have undertaken to ensure that 988 dialing was accomplished by the FCC’s deadline so that people can benefit from this critical service.” Shari Sinwelski, crisis care vice president at California's Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, said she heard anecdotally that some people were routed to 988 after calling from businesses or organizations that require dialing 9 for an outside line and then dialing a number that starts with 88.

Virginia's PRS CrisisLink, which typically averages 115 to 120 Lifeline calls a day, saw that number shoot up to well over 200, Senior Director Laura Clark said. Some of that traffic has been crisis related, but a lot has been people testing the service and programming it into their operator boards, she said. She said text traffic has been up heavily, 180% over usual. She said one outstanding need is for geolocation of calls, so calls are routed to the closest crisis call center instead of to the area code of the phone number. People in Virginia, even if they don't have Virginia numbers, "need Virginia resources," she said.

The FCC is studying Lifeline geolocation and Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel endorsed the idea (see 2207150036). Asked about next steps, the agency didn't comment.

Contacts at Didi Hirsch doubled over the weekend, some of it people in crisis and quite a bit of it from people testing the line or asking questions about the service, said Sinwelski. She said Lifeline saw surges in traffic in the past after events driving a lot of publicity, such as the 2014 suicide death of Robin Williams or Anthony Bourdain's in 2018, and those volumes would then partially recede but to a new, higher norm. She said that's likely what will happen with 988 traffic following the publicity around the soft launch, with Lifeline contacts steadily creeping up from that new baseline. She said Lifeline had about a 15% annual increase in calls before 988 and some projections are for a twofold to fourfold hike over the next couple of years due to 988. There's no sustained national marketing plan for now, but "when and if that comes, obviously we will see the big, sustained increase," she said.

Orlando's Heart of Florida United Way had "a slight uptick" in traffic over the weekend "but nothing too overwhelming yet," likely due to the soft launch rather than a full marketing campaign, said Catherine Rea, 211 service vice president. She said Heart of Florida submitted budgets to the state and Lifeline administrator, Vibrant Emotional Health, anticipating a 600% increase in Lifeline traffic in the first year, with the expectation that traffic will start ramping up faster once marketing increases. "The power of three-digit dialing is phenomenal," she said.

Western New York state's Crisis Services already had good volumes of Lifeline calls before 988, which is part of the reason it had only a slight uptick with 988 online, President Jessica Pirro said. She said as states build up resources such as crisis hotlines and mobile response teams, the expectation is more calls are answered in the state from which they originate instead of bouncing to the national backup.

Call2Talk, the mental health helpline of Massachusetts' Mass 211 human service information and referral platform, saw "a significant increase in volume" starting Friday as media coverage began, said Director Eileen Davis. "We would be foolish not to plan for a [further] increase” as the year goes on, she said, adding that Call2Talk plans to continue building capacity through further recruitment and training of call-takers through the year.