By Keith Whitcomb Jr. Staff Writer
While it won’t happen for another year, work is underway to make dialing 988 connect a person directly to the national Suicide Prevention Hotline.
The issue is more complex than it seems, said Alison Krompf, director of quality and accountability at the Vermont Department of Mental Health.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has been around since the early 2000s, she said. People can reach it by calling 1-800-273-8255. While it’s a national line, it will direct a caller to the nearest crisis center. For Vermont, for a time, the 211 service was fielding those calls, but since 2019, it’s been Northwestern Counseling & Support Services in St. Albans. Krompf said this has allowed the hotline to be answered in-state Monday through Friday during business hours. The plan is, by May, to bring on a second provider to cover nights and weekends.
Krompf said the goal is to have an in-state person pick up the phone anytime someone in Vermont calls the hotline. Now, if no one is available, the call goes to the nearest provider, which right now is in New Hampshire.
Installing the 988 number came last year through an act of Congress, said Krompf. Vermont has received some grant funding to prepare. About $135,000 has come from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), while another $75,000 has come from a nonprofit called Vibrant Emotional Health. The SAMHSA funds are to help prepare for issues such as education, outreach and coordination, while the Vibrant grant was to build capacity.
Krompf said prior to the coronavirus pandemic, there was a bill in the state Legislature to fund the suicide hotline response. This was before talk of the 988 feature, but the bill fell by the wayside because of the pandemic. The work qualifies for federal coronavirus relief money, but that’s a short-term solution. Vermont will have to look at how to fund this long term, which it hopes to figure out by September.
Krompf said there is currently a coalition made of her department, mental health services and advocates, as well as law enforcement, working to have that plan ready to unveil in September. Beside funding, it must be determined how to market the 988 number, and to figure out when people should call 911 and when they should call 988.
Right now, it’s generally settled that if a person is injured they should call 911.
“What we’ve heard from the community and from peers and peer advocates is what a lot of people find harmful is dispatching police when someone is having a mental health crisis,” she said. “And so if that’s going to be the 911 response, that’s our big point of discussion, is who is the best person to go out.”
The department plans to hire an outreach coordinator within the next two weeks to begin work on the campaign that will explain the changes to people, she said.
The Vermont suicide hotline receives about 240 calls per month on average. September saw a high of 262. Krompf said it’s believed that the 988 feature may see calls increase by 15%.
Laurie Emerson, executive director of National Alliance on Mental Illness Vermont, said the 988 efforts are a good step.
“NAMI’s perspective is to make it much more comprehensive than just a suicide lifeline prevention number,” she said, adding that it could also be for other mental health or drug abuse related emergencies.
“We do not want law enforcement responding to a mental health crisis unless there is a criminal component, maybe a gun or a weapon involved,” she said.
A robust crisis mental health service would reduce 911 calls for law enforcement, prevent suicides, and lessen the burden on emergency rooms.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, starting Oct. 24, people will have to dial the area code on local calls, as part of the 988 implementation.
keith.whitcomb @rutlandherald.com
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