County works to bolster resources after 988 launch

In July, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (988lifeline.org) launched, serving as a much simpler version of the prior National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number, 1-800-273-TALK (8255). In anticipation of the transition, President Joe Biden’s administration invested over $400 million across the county earlier this year to bolster crisis centers and mental health support services (tinyurl.com/yyyl5s9t).

While 988 is the new number for the national crisisline, the 1-800 number will remain available for the foreseeable future, so callers to either number will be directed the same way regardless of which number they choose.

The local call center for both the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is Suicide Prevention and Crisis Services (SPCS). Staff there, along with others in the mental health care sector, have been working diligently over the course of this year to increase local resources and meet the anticipated increase in demand for crisis services following 988’s launch.

The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline directs a call to crisis centers according to the caller’s area code, so anyone with a 607 area code will be directed to SPCS’s crisis center if they dial 988 within the hours of 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. every day.

If the line is busy or a person calls outside of the 10-to-1 window, the call will be directed to another crisis center within the region. While some crisis centers do support texts to 988, SPCS does not at this time, so texting 988 would put a person in touch with a different crisis center. SPCS is also still maintaining its local crisisline, (607) 272-1616, with the same hours of 10 a.m. to 1 a.m.

As far as what a caller should expect, Harmony Ayers-Friedlander, deputy commissioner of mental health and the director of community services for Tompkins County government (tinyurl.com/2evxmons), explained that callers will be connected “with a compassionate person who’s going to be understanding to their situation, who’s going to be able to spend some time just talking them through what their needs are.”

“A lot of times, that’s what people really need,” she said. “That’s the really big difference between 911 and 988. If you call 911, they have to be very quick for their calls, [but] 988, the person is going to give you some time to really listen to what’s going on, to help understand what kinds of support you might need in the community and then link you with any kinds of supports you might need.”

SPCS Executive Director Tiffany Bloss added that her crisis center staff “really let the callers drive the call.”

“Everything is completely confidential; everything is completely anonymous,” she said. “There will be isolated incidents where we involve rescue should they be in a current suicide attempt. Our main goal is to keep people safe, but we’re really here to listen and be nonjudgmental and try to help people sort through their feelings and find a source of support or hope and a little different perspective on their situation. But we let them drive the conversation and let it go where it needs to go.”

In regard to that rescue mention, Bloss clarified that, should the situation call for it, local 988 responders may connect the caller with 911 or call law enforcement themselves, but those are very rare cases.

“Our main priority is not to call 911,” she said. “For every single situation, majority of the time, we can talk people down to a place where they’re safe. Sometimes, we can talk them into going to the hospital if they need to or [make] some kind of connection that they need. But it’s really not to involve law enforcement unless the need is there. And we here are very close with 911 in the county, so we have a really good relationship about gauging, when is this appropriate, when is it not?”

Ayers-Friedlander said that she and others are glad to see 988’s launch, and not just because it’s a much shorter number.

“It’s just [an] exciting time, really, to see this recognition of the importance of behavioral health and the need for a separate process to really address people’s needs and to see it happen across the entire country where there’s going to be this new service for people,” she said. “And a short number like that is easy for people to remember and really, I think, going to make a difference for people in getting access to care anywhere, anytime in our country.”

Bloss started her role this past April, and she said much of her work since has been focused on 988.

“We’ve done a lot of restructuring and refining some things within the organization, making sure some of our processes are streamlined and things like that,” she said. “So, we’re setting the foundation for what we need to go forward in a big way.”

Bloss highlighted the recent hiring of SPCS’s crisis line manager, who will help to further increase the resources and staffing provided for local 988 response, as well as the anticipated hiring of a new licensed social worker. In addition, current crisis line staff are diligently working to provide the most accurate, useful information to callers.

“We’re making sure like our databases are up to date, and anytime folks have a little extra time, they’re calling some of these resources just to verify,” she said. “We’re connecting with other call centers to see how things are going on there and how they’re handling different calls and if they’re seeing a rise in emergency or anything like that. So, [we’ve] really expanded the communication. And we, staffing-wise, have been training a lot of new folks. And we’re in a constant state of recruitment right now.”

Since 988’s launch, Bloss said that her crisis center has seen an estimated 21% increase in call volume, which is notable but not as high as original anticipated prior to its launch.

“The first couple of weeks, there [were] folks that were just curious about it and they wanted to call and [see] ‘what happens when I call this,’ which is great because we want people to be able to have that experience and be able to tell people that it’s a soft, warm kind of call that they can make,” she said. “We have been a little bit of an increase in immanency. I think that it’s so much easier to remember 988 versus that big long number, … which I think is a positive thing, that we’re having an increase in those calls, because it means that we’re accessible for more people.”

Bloss added that the relatively small increase is a good thing for now, allowing her center time to increase response resources going into next year before a more significant volume increase.

While SPCS and others are working to improve resources, Bloss and Ayers-Friedlander acknowledged that there are still some gaps within the community that make meeting everyone’s mental health needs difficult.

“A lot of it right now is just when you have that referral process, and there’s waiting lists for therapists,” Bloss said. “And we’ve got a lot of people that call us daily because they’re like, ‘I can’t see anybody for three months; no one around has any access for things.’ So, that’s been a big struggle for folks. And then, when they do find someone, [they need] transportation to be able to get there. It’s not always easy to do the bus system or public service. It’s been difficult even when they’ve got just regular medical care. Just the access to those kinds of things has been tough.”

Ayers-Friedlander added that ongoing community challenges like affordable housing shortages also play a role.

“Affordable housing is a significant issue in our community,” she said. “And if you’re having mental health challenges or co-occurring mental health and substance use challenges, and you don’t have safe, affordable housing, that’s a significant stressor on a person, and you really need to have housing first before you can address those other issues in a person’s life. So, that tends to be another area for our community to look at how we can improve.”

Both Ayers-Friedlander and Bloss ask that folks be patient with 988 as it evolves, as they expect significant improvements to the system and the resources it provides as time goes on. For example, they’re both hoping that the current area code system gets changed to geolocation, which is how 911 works.

“If somebody won’t disclose where their location is and they’ve popped [up] as an anonymous caller or blocked caller, unless they disclosed [their area of residence], we cannot find the appropriate resources for them,” Bloss said. “We’ve got a strong database for the counties that we cover, and we make sure that we have really good connections with all the agencies and the folks that are in those communities. But when we get somebody that calls from Colorado, it’s a lot more difficult for us to research it.”

Bloss said that her staff are also actively working to make 988 texting available locally and to finally bring back 24/7 crisis support at SCPS. For more information about SCPS, visit its website at ithacacrisis.org.

Jessica Wickham is the managing editor of Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to them at editorial@VizellaMedia.com.