Online option helps more people in crisis

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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Suicide prevention lifelines are invaluable resources in crisis; a sympathetic ear can literally save the life of a person contemplating suicide.

But sometimes even that anonymous telephone exchange can be too intense or intimidating for a person struggling with suicidal thoughts.

That's why we're glad to see the Johnson County Crisis Center expand its services to include online chats. We hope other similar Iowa organizations follow their lead.

“We realize that a lot of people aren't comfortable using the phone anymore, they prefer to use text or chat,” Johnson County Crisis Center Crisis Intervention Coordinator Sara Knox told us this week.

So in August, the Johnson County Crisis Center joined the national group, http://crisischat.org. By last month, about 130 of the nearly 850 crisis contacts handled by the center were conducted via chat.

That option makes sense in an age when we increasingly rely on computers and devices to help us connect with the people we care about - maybe especially for young people.

Suicide is the third-leading cause of death among Americans aged 15 to 24, and Knox said the numbers seem to show that the chat option is reaching a younger demographic. It's rare for volunteers to receive calls from teenagers in crisis over the lifeline, she said. So far, while chats have come in from a wide variety of people, there are noticeably more teenagers and young adults, she said.

No matter what their age, many users have told volunteers they just wouldn't have felt comfortable sharing their struggles with a person over the phone, Knox said.

Similar to the national lifeline, local crisis centers pool their resources to provide trained volunteers to answer chats requests - to listen and offer non-judgmental, compassionate support.

Users simply type the URL into their Web browser, then fill out a short profile - they have the choice to remain anonymous.

Knox told us that so far, the Johnson County Crisis Center is Crisis Chat's only Iowa partner. And while chats are answered by volunteers around the country, the national network clearly needs more help.

“We're still trying to catch up with all this pent-up demand,” she said.

So far, the group is only able to staff the chat room from around noon to midnight daily. Sometimes there are more people looking for help than there are volunteers available to chat.

We hope more groups recognize the value in offering crisis support available through a variety of formats, so that more people struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm can reach out for help - so they know they're not alone.

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