Crisis Text Line

History

Crisis Text Line was conceptualized as a result of Do Something's mobile interactions with its members. Do Something CEO Nancy Lublin states that as members increasingly sent deeply personal text messages, she saw a need for a separate channel for these messages in order to better assist the young people sending them. In public appearances, Lublin specifically cites a series of texts reading "He won't stop raping me... It's my dad." as an impetus for creating Crisis Text Line.

The service was given a quiet launch in August 2013 through a text message to Do Something members in Chicago and El Paso, and was soon being used by texters in every United States area code. Today, 350 people text the service daily, most of whom discovered the service through word-of-mouth.

In July 2015, it was announced that Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile would be waiving fees for use of the service, and that texts to Crisis Text Line would not appear on billing records. Publicity for the move, including a high-profile blog post by Richard Branson, prompted AT&T to follow suit.

In September 2015, Crisis Text Line announced via the Do Something blog that it would be taking steps to become a resource for people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. A text message to the service reading, "I can't call suicide hotlines because I can't hear, so I was hoping I could use this service" was mentioned as an inspiration for this announcement. Specifically, the blog post mentioned accessible training for Crisis Counselors, and creating education around working with Deaf texters.

Chief Data Scientist Bob Filbin was highlighted in The Chronicle of Philanthropy as one of their 40 Under 40 for his work using data to inform Crisis Text Line's efforts. Speaking about the difference between Crisis Text Line's corpus and other mental health data, he said, "This is people in their greatest moment of crisis. Most of the other data on mental health and crisis is survey data, which is collected after the fact. It’s people remembering."

Crisis counselors

Crisis counselors are all at least eighteen years old, and are selected through an application process in which 30% of applicants are accepted. Once selected, they are required to submit a background check, complete thirty-four hours of training, and pass a final evaluation. Graduated crisis counselors commit to four hours on the platform weekly for a year.

Leadership

In order to ensure best practices and effectiveness in training, counseling, technological development, and organizational structure, Crisis Text Line consults with both a board of directors and an expert National Advisory Board.

The board of directors includes Nancy Lublin, danah boyd, Ph.D., the principal researcher at Microsoft research, and David Drummond of Google.

The National Advisory Board includes experts in mental health advocacy and in the hotline space, including Alison Malmon, founder of Active Minds, John Draper, Ph.D., director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline network, John MacPhee, executive director and CEO of The Jed Foundation, and Christine Moutier, Chief Medical Officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

James Wright, MS, the Public Health Advisor of the SAMHSA Center for Mental Health Services, serves as a special advisor.

Data and CrisisTrends.org

Crisistrends.org is a product of Crisis Text Line that, using data derived from the text messages received, compiles and provides information about crises in the United States. Describing potential uses of this data, Lublin told Glamour, "If you know anxiety peaks from 7:00 to 9:00 pm, schools could schedule their guidance counselors to be available then".

Crisistrends.org was launched in August 2014. Data on CrisisTrends.org are anonymized.

Circling Texters

In late 2014, Chief Data Scientist Bob Filbin discovered that 3 percent of texters were using 34 percent of organization resources. "Over the next six months, he helped find ways to identify them and move them on to services that could more effectively help them," reports Colgate Scene. . It was estimated that the change led to 24,000 additional texters helped in 2015.

Topic-Specific Findings

In December 2015, Crisis Text Line made headlines by releasing data that implied that bullying and harassment against Muslims was on the rise. Lublin was quoted as saying, "These political scare tactics have real implications on everyday Americans."

Crisis Text Line experienced a noteworthy increase in volume immediately after Donald Trump's election as President of the United States. Specifically, the data revealed that "election" and "scared" were the words that overindexed most in the days after the election, and that the word "scared" was most frequently associated with LGBTQ texters.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Crisis Text Line's data about prom-related crises, noting that financial concerns were the most prevalent cause of prom-related conversations with the service.

Analysis of the service's data around military texters revealed that active duty service members and veterans make up 2.4% of texters, and that these texters are more likely to be struggling with suicidal ideation or substance abuse.

Predictive data

Lublin told Wired that the data are helping counselors by using keywords to predict the subject matter of a conversation. A profile reads: "As the software analyzes incoming texts, it can send counselors targeted messages like, 'There’s a 99 percent chance this texter has a substance abuse issue. Here are three rehab programs within the texter’s area code.'"

Enclave data

In 2016, Crisis Text Line launched enclave data, available to university researchers and research institutions. Interested researchers are able to apply for selective pulls of conversation data. Texters have the option to opt out completely of being included in this data.

Bay Area partnership

In December 2016, an expansive partnership with San Francisco and surrounding cities was announced. CalTrain, the City of Palo Alto, and a number of high schools were all involved in improving awareness of the service in the area. A hashtag campaign accompanied the announcement that partners would gain anonymized data specific to texters using the "BAY" keyword to text in.

International

Crisis Text Line says that efforts to expand internationally are underway. Current steps include developing accreditation standards and establishing key international partnerships. The organization is inviting interested parties outside of the United States to connect.

The Crisis Text Line International Summit took place November 18–19, 2015, in New York City.