Central Coast Hotline plans to start texting to help reach local teens in crisis
The Central Coast Hotline is transforming from a phone bank staffed by dedicated volunteers to a modern crisis call center.
Must! Charities, a North County organization, will invest $546,000 over three years to update the Central Coast Hotline, Transitions Community Engagement Director Michael Kaplan said. The program is managed by Transitions-Mental Health Association and headquartered in San Luis Obispo.
Must! Charities and Transitions searched for about seven years for the right project to collaborate on. When the idea of updating the Central Coast Hotline came up in November, the team at Transitions didn’t waste time putting together a proposal, Kaplan said.
The money will be used to replace the outdated phone system, add a 24/7 texting service, relocate operations to a new building and more, Kaplan said.
The Central Coast Hotline will move to a modern phone system, allowing volunteers to answer calls, send text messages and take notes all within a single system. The current system has volunteers use corded telephones and take notes on paper to type in later.
“To be honest, we’ve been chomping at the bit to be able to really upgrade everything,” Kaplan said. “We had been feeling for a while that we wanted to add a texting component to the Hotline but we knew that we were going to need a major upgrade of equipment and also new training components.”
The history of the Central Coast Hotline
The Central Coast Hotline started as the SLO Hotline back in 1970.
It was paired with the local 211 community services hotline and functioned as its own nonprofit until about 2009, according to Kaplan.
United Way took over operations for 211 while Transitions-Mental Health Association folded SLO Hotline into its various mental health programs. The crisis hotline was also partially funded through the San Luis Obispo County Behavioral Health Department.
In 2020, Transitions received some funding from a local marketing agency and rebranded the hotline as the Central Coast Hotline, in an effort to counter the common misunderstanding that the hotline only served San Luis Obispo locals and help Northern Santa Barbara County residents in Santa Maria and Lompoc use the service, Kaplan said.
While there are many statewide and national suicide prevention and mental health resources, the fact that the Central Coast Hotline is run by local volunteers for local people makes a difference, Kaplan said.
“To have (a crisis hotline) that is rooted in your community, I think it’s more powerful, I think it’s more effective,” Kaplan said.
Text message services help hotline reach teens, young adults
The Central Coast Hotline fields about 10,000 calls from people living in San Luis Obispo County and parts of Northern Santa Barbara County annually.
Of these calls, less than 1% are from people under the age of 21, according to a news release from the organization.
“Teens prefer to text,” Central Coast Hotline Program Manager Melanie Barket said in the release. “We want them to use this resource anytime they need it, in the way they are most comfortable.”
The low engagement from teenagers and young adults indicates an outreach gap for the Central Coast Hotline, particularly as more data is released showing that this population is experiencing a mental health crisis.
Between 2009-19, the share of high school students who reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness grew by 40%, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Adverse mental health experiences are not spread equally among all teenagers.
High school students who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or questioning are more likely to report these feelings, according to the CDC.
Meanwhile, the number of Black students who reported attempting suicide rose by more than 50% in 2019, according to the CDC.
The COVID-19 pandemic likely exacerbated these preexisting challenges.
A CDC survey on mental health from June 2021 showed that 56% of young adults reported symptoms of anxiety and/or depression, the release said.
“We’re making what we think is an educated guess that this is how we can fill a gap,” Kaplan said. “We know from all of the national statistics that there is absolutely a mental health crisis among young people, among teenagers.”
“We think that the hotline is a great resource but we have noticed that it is not used by this demographic, so we are hoping that by providing texting capabilities they’ll find a way to use it.”
Transitions-Mental Health Association hopes to have the 24/7 text message hotline up and running by June 2022.
Funding will also expand telehealth therapy offerings
The waitlist for therapy and other mental health services were exceptionally long during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, so Transitions launched a Brief Therapy Clinic that allowed callers to connect with therapy services over the phone, Kaplan said.
The interns were volunteer Cal Poly and Cuesta College students who are studying to be licensed therapists, he said.
Some of the funds Must! Charities is providing to the Central Coast Hotline will be used to pay some therapy interns while others will be hired on as volunteers. More therapy interns on staff will help them expand their telehealth therapy services.
How to get help
If you are in crisis or need help finding mental health resources, call the Central Coast Hotline at 800-783-0607. You may also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text HELLO to 741-741.
Transitions-Mental Health Association has a variety of programs to help with housing, family support, clinical care and more. See a complete list of services on their website.
