It’s been one year since the creation of the three-digit mental health crisis hotline known as 988.
Yellowstone Public Radio’s Orlinda Worthington reports on how the implementation of the simplified number is improving service in Montana.
The universal help line was established nationwide to ensure better and broader access to those in a mental health crisis.
John Tabb is the Suicide Prevention Program Specialist for Montana.
“The main purpose of 988 was to simplify to a number that people could remember when they're in crisis,” Tabb said.
And it appears to be working.
The number of calls received for suicide attempts or a mental health crisis went up 30 percent in Montana since the launch of the simplified number.
Tabb says trained crisis employees and volunteers took close to ten-thousand calls the first year between the three call centers in the state, located in Bozeman, Great Falls and Missoula.
Nationwide, the time to answer a 988 call is about 42 seconds.
Montana’s call center is performing well above the national average.
‘In Montana, we average about 10 seconds a call so it’s very quickly done,” according to Tabb.
The program in Montana costs around a million dollars a year to operate, with the funding coming from a number of sources, including a federal grant, and the state general fund.
Currently, callers to 988 can select to speak with a veteran, or someone in the LGBTQ or Native communities. Tabb hopes to expand those options and implement local text and chat modalities in the future.
Tabb says one misconception is that police or an ambulance will be automatically dispatched when a person calls 988. But the majority of callers are stabilized on the phone, so emergency response is called only when needed.
More than 4 million people nationwide have called, texted or chatted the suicide prevention hotline nationwide in the past year, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
