Volunteer Opportunity: Become a CONTACT Pittsburgh Crisis Line Specialist

Have you ever wanted to help a stranger? Have you ever wanted to work on your listening skills? If someone needs to talk would you be willing to listen? If you have ever considered becoming a volunteer for a crisis and suicide hotline, the opportunity approaches! CONTACT Pittsburgh’s Spring Training is just around the corner and open to all applicants 18 years of age and above.

There is no need for prior experience in counseling or social work. The training session will teach all you need to know as a Crisis Line Specialist. CONTACT Pittsburgh has volunteers from all walks of life, ranging from college students to seniors who have an interest in helping others. Our current volunteers have been on the phones anywhere from one month after training to 35 years!

Becoming a volunteer and Crisis Line Specialist has several phases. First, submit an application here. Second, meet with CONTACT’s Director of Outreach so that we can learn more about you, and so that you can learn more about what being Crisis Line Specialist entails. Third, complete 36 hours of training over seven classes in which you will learn the skills of active listening through practice and role playing. Each training session focuses on a topic that you will encounter as a volunteer and features a presentation by a professional in that field. Finally, you will be oriented to the phone room and partake in three training shifts with veteran Crisis Line Specialists. After you have started taking calls, the Applied Suicide Intervention Skills (ASIST) program must be completed sometime within the next 6 months.

If you have read this far into this post, you may be thinking, Hrm, I wonder what it would be like to be a Crisis Line Specialist and volunteer with CONTACT. Well, it just so happens I can explain some of my experience up to date. The Pitt Psychology Department led me to CONTACT in January 2010 as a part of their field placement program. The active listening skills I learned over the three weeks of training were not something I would have had the opportunity to learn in a classroom at Pitt. These skills are so useful I often find myself listening better in everyday situations. Upon completion of the training I was quite nervous to receive my first call, but with a veteran volunteer watching over my shoulder, I grew more and more comfortable. After the shifts with the veteran volunteers I began taking calls myself. Through all of the training, I have grown confident in my skills, although I do get a small rush of adrenaline each time the phone rings.

Here are the training dates for Spring 2010 (volunteers must complete all seven sessions):

Tuesday, April 27, 6:00 PM-9:00 PM
Saturday, May 1, 9:00 AM-2:00 PM
Tuesday, May 4, 6:00 PM-9:00 PM
Saturday, May 8, 9:00 AM-2:00 PM
Tuesday, May 11, 6:00 PM-9:00 PM

Thanks for listening!

-Brian

Cornell University Reaches Out

On Tuesday, the New York Times reported on Cornell University's response to three apparent student suicides in less than a month, two of which occurred back-to-back on Thursday and Friday of last week.

Reporter Trip Gabriel writes:

On Monday and Tuesday, the start of a stressful exam week before spring break, professors interrupted classes to tell students they cared for them not just academically, but personally. Both days, the university president, Dr. David J. Skorton, took out a full-page ad in the campus paper, The Cornell Daily Sun, saying: “Your well-being is the foundation on which your success is built. If you learn anything at Cornell, please learn to ask for help.”

Cornell is encouraging students to ask for help, but they've also been working for a long time on mental health outreach to students.

Cornell’s mental health outreach in recent years, which has attracted national attention, is intended to bring students who are at risk, and who might not seek help, into counseling. Custodians are trained to look for signs of emotional trouble when cleaning out dorms; therapists hold open-door hours at 10 campus locations; and a faculty handbook advises professors about how to spot students’ distress in its many contemporary forms, from disturbing artwork to clothes that disguise self-mutilation.

This article has generated a lot of conversation among readers of the New York Times, with over 250 comments as of today. Though the internet allows for many readers to remain anonymous, several of these comments show the willingness of readers to share their experiences with suicide. Many of us have a lot of ideas about suicide and not only are we willing to talk about them, but we want to talk about them to. This underscores how important it is to talk about suicide, when we're feeling suicidal or think someone we know might be, and even when we're not feeling suicidal at all. Brian, a CONTACT Pittsburgh Intern and student at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote about this earlier in the month.

You can read the complete New York Times article here. Our thoughts are with the friends and families of these students.

-Kate

Let's Talk About Suicide

First off, my name is Brian and I am a psychology student at the University of Pittsburgh as well as an intern at CONTACT Pittsburgh. When my roommates heard about my internship, we had a long conversation about suicide. We came to the idea that suicide is a subject that simply is not talked about very much, even though we had all had a level of suicidal ideation at some point throughout our lives. Even among controversial topics such as sexual minorities, drugs, and addiction, suicide seems to take a back seat. The American Association of Suicidology reports that among young adults aged 15-19 and 15-24, suicide is the third leading cause of death behind accidents and homicide. In my experience through this age my parents were more likely to speak to me about drugs and sex than suicide.

So let’s talk about suicide. One reason why suicide takes a back seat is the fact that it is heavily stigmatized as something only insecure and weak minded people consider. In a modern society that is largely driven by personal conquest, insecurity and weakness are not accepted and therefore suicidal ideation is not accepted. As mentioned before, my roommates and I agreed that we had all experienced some level of suicidal ideation, ranging from pondering a world without our existence to a clear and thought out plan to end our life. So according to this stigmatization, a lot of us, including my roommates and I, are insecure and weak minded. Maybe we are in some ways, but I don’t think it’s because we’ve thought about suicide.

I think that breaking this stigma surrounding suicide involves talking about suicide openly and honestly. To me, the ability to hold a conversation on suicide with another person reveals strength and security, not weakness. The challenge here resides in starting that conversation. I recently completed training to become a CONTACT Pittsburgh Crisis Line Specialist and even I’ve found some difficulties bringing up suicide to a caller—it’s a hard topic to talk about, but it isn’t impossible. So my challenge to you is to start that conversation with someone. Whether or not you or someone you know is feeling suicidal it can’t hurt to talk about the subject and how you feel about it.

-Brian