Suicide hot line to go silent over lack of funding

Forty years ago, a Portsmouth woman's club launched a hot line to pull people from the brink of suicide.

The Suicide Crisis Center was a voice-at-the-end-of-the-line that has helped thousands of Hampton Roads people through the night.

Come July 1, though, that around-the-clock number will be disconnected.

It's a victim of a lack of funding - a common theme in the recession-weary world of human services - and a shortage of volunteers.

In 1999, unable to sustain the hot line, the Junior Woman's Club of Portsmouth handed off the project to The Planning Council, a human services agency in Norfolk, which called it the Crisis Line.

Suzanne Puryear, president of that agency, said the line received some United Way funding, but as the years passed, the Planning Council was having to throw in more money, about $40,000 in 2009.

The organization also struggled to find volunteers willing to commit to the 40-hour training and the once-a-week shift required to cover the phone line. There were once 125 volunteers; only 35 remain.

"Rather than letting it die on the vine, or stretching people so thin they made a critical error, we decided to terminate the service," Puryear said.

After June 30, the agency will recommend people call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, (800) 273-TALK (8255), which is also an around-the-clock number. Trained counselors on those lines will have resource numbers for Hampton Roads.

Next month, the Planning Council plans to recognize volunteers of decades past, such as Jean Corley. The 76-year-old Chesapeake woman manned the phones for 25 years, taking countless calls at all hours.

"Even though I know people will be taken care of, it saddens my heart to see it close," said Corley, who stopped volunteering two years ago.

She never met callers, but Corley said she felt a closeness just talking with them, and helping them find solutions.

Lidia S. Bernik, who directs the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline's network, said calls will be routed to other qualified crisis centers in the state - in Bristol, Lynchburg, Dumfries and Arlington - depending on their availability. Those lines, which meet the same national standards the Crisis Line did, will have resource information for Hampton Roads.

She said the group likes to connect people to crisis centers as close to the person as possible. For example, Hampton Roads callers to the national line have typically been routed to the Crisis Line.

However, she said, agencies in other areas of the country also have had a hard time keeping lines alive during the recession.

Bernik said the national line's calls have been on the rise - up 15 percent from 2008 to 2009. Puryear, though, said the local line's calls fell 21 percent, from 6,816 to 5,365, in the same time period.

Janis V. Sanchez-Hucles, a professor of psychology at Old Dominion University, said she was sorry to hear the line would be discontinued. Some of her students worked as volunteers there. She also prefers that volunteers manning the phones be familiar with the area's resources.

If a loved one was trying to make a crisis call, she said, she wants the person giving advice to be a few minutes away: "It may not make a huge difference, but it makes me feel better."

Puryear said that when the crisis line first started decades ago, there were not as many resources as there are today. She said people can seek services from Community Services Boards, youth agencies, military-based services and faith-based ministries.

She said the Planning Council will focus on doing other types of suicide prevention.

Chris Gilchrist, a Chesapeake social worker and facilitator of the Survivors of Suicide support group, said the two most important tasks of a crisis line counselor are to interrupt the moment of crisis, when a person usually feels isolated, and to provide resources for follow-up treatment.

Family members or friends of a suicidal person also often use the line, and they should know to take the person to an emergency room for help or call 911 if they believe the person is in immediate danger of attempting suicide.

Just as important is hooking the person up with therapists or agencies that can provide on going counseling and medication.

Over the years, the Crisis Line developed a following of sorts of people who called because they were lonely. Puryear said the agency is trying to identify these "warm line" callers to connect them with other resources before the line goes down.

Corley said she received a lot of gratification over the years in being the voice on the line for people who felt they had no where to turn.

"Some people would want to know who they could get in touch with for help, but others just wanted to talk," Corley said. "They just wanted someone to listen."

Elizabeth Simpson, (757) 446-2635, elizabeth.simpson@pilotonline.com