Newstrack: Johnson County Crisis Center stops Mandarin chat program

Background

In 2014, the Johnson County Crisis Center expanded its reach to those struggling with thoughts of suicide by offering an online chat option in Mandarin to help the University of Iowa's growing Chinese student population.

The Crisis Center added the Mandarin option after the UI received a grant and worked with the center to identify which minority student population would benefit from the services the most. The number of international student enrollment has jumped from 2,153 to 4,049 since 2007, with Chinese students making up the vast majority of that growth (2,797), according to the UI.

What's happened since

Sadly, despite the jump in international Chinese students, the Crisis Center never got the volume needed to maintain the program.

'We got a lot of volunteers out of it, just not the usage,' said Rachel Beach, the crisis chat coordinator.

The Crisis Center has been helping residents since 1970 through crisis intervention counseling, suicide prevention and intervention, supplemental food services, emergency financial assistance, disaster recovery and other community programs.

Beach said there was a slight bump in Chinese students reaching out for help after the September 2014 homicide of Tong Shao, an Iowa State University student, who was killed by her boyfriend, Xiangnan Li, a UI student, both from China. In March of this year, Li admitted to killing Shao in a Chinese court.

However, that was not enough to sustain the program, Beach said, and the Crisis Center decided to 'call it off a year after we started.'

Beach said the Crisis Center still has a handful of Mandarin-speaking volunteers who have been trained in listening skills and suicide prevention to speak with any Chinese students looking for help.

The Crisis Center hoped the anonymity of the chat feature would encourage more students who needed it to use its services.

'But this is a culture that does not encourage help-seeking behaviors,' she added.

The Crisis Center is responsive to the evolving needs of the community, Beach said, explaining it tailored services to people affected by the 2008 floods and is keeping a close eye on the issues regarding lack of affordable housing options in Iowa City.

'We also can add a (third-party) translation service on any call for those who may not be native speakers,' she said.