Work-life balance emphasized for crisis line staff
Despite working up to 10-hour shifts in a windowless room answering phone calls from people who could be going through the worst day of their life, most of the staff members of the Center for Community Resources crisis line stay in the job for years.
Butler County Crisis Intervention Services, which handles calls from people dialing 988 — the suicide and crisis lifeline — or the local emergency hotline, has a work environment catered to supporting its employees. The call center room is set up so each staff member can easily talk to everyone else, with standing desks and areas where employees can decompress.
Every crisis intervention specialist in the call center goes through 160 hours of training before getting on the phone lines. When incoming calls can go on for hours, it comes in handy for the workers.
“Just the team support here, I know if I’m having something going on I can turn around and have any of the other five people sitting here turn around and support me,” said Rylee Roscoe, a crisis intervention specialist who has worked at the center for nearly three years.
“But you can’t take it all home either, you have to take care of yourself. We have self-care trainings, we sit here all individually and have little crafts and tasks that we do like coloring, crocheting — some people knit.”
Katie Doerr, senior director at the Center for Community Resources, said staff retention became an important tenant for the call center in the past few years, when the organization began hiring more crisis intervention specialists. The center now has 22 people who staff the phones 24 hours a day, because people can call the hotline at any time.
Phone shifts are staggered, so the call receptionists are always at the desk. Staff members starting their shift can pick up where a previous shift left off.
These are all intentional policies at the center, with Doerr saying that supporting the staff of the agency is always top of mind — “it’s important for our staff to be healthy so they can help somebody who is not OK today.”
“They have to be healthy themselves,” Doerr said of her staff members. “Our latest thing is art crafts, so in the self-care basket, they asked if we could do a craft for the month too. Just something that takes away from this, the intervention, the crisis, the constant phone ringing, the doorbell ringing, all those things.”
Crafts and art are features of the center’s office on East North Street. The main hallway is lined with the group collages created at the annual suicide awareness rally, which takes place each September. Each desk has a ghost hanging on the wall above it, each created by a staffer of the center.
Doerr said the office also has birthday parties for staff members, and they share meals once in a while.
All these efforts are good for the staff to unwind between taking calls, answering text messages or even meeting with walk-ins. But when they experience a potentially traumatic event, like a death of a person who has called, they may need professional support to cope with the feelings.
Kristen Martin, senior program manager at the center, said Roscoe and crisis intervention specialist Carlee Hays-McClymonds had a death a couple weeks ago, which involved more follow-up to ensure they maintained a balanced mental state.
“I was making sure I was checking in with them. I told their supervisor to discuss in supervision or if anybody needs to talk,” said Martin, who has worked in the call center for 10 years and now makes the staff schedule. “Years ago, I had a really horrible death that I had gone to and I needed the next day off because it was a lot.”
According to Martin and Doerr, the people working the crisis line come from different educational backgrounds, with Martin herself going to college with initial plans to be a psychologist. Others have degrees in social work and even criminal justice. Doerr said life experience and personality plays a role in whom she hires to be on the job.
Doerr, too, said the training process helps a person build the skills necessary to navigate a phone call from an individual going through a crisis. Every call is different, which is where teamwork comes in.
“I only had a little bit of experience when I came to this position, but just empathy and compassion and the ability to active listen,” Doerr said. “Sometimes we have to hone those skills in … so we just have to be compassionate and patient when it comes to understanding their situation.”
Martin said that if one of her co-workers has a particularly difficult call or meeting, she recommends they take a breath right away to keep themselves balanced.
Because the last thing the phone staff want to do is take the job home with them.
“You have to take care of yourself so that you’re not taking that home because this is a heavy job,” crisis intervention specialist Becky Flick said. “We kind of lean on each other for that support, but also the little self-care things.”
Doerr said the summer is normally a low point for calls and walk-ins because some calls come from people referring others from schools. But the Butler County center performs about 100 community mobile services each month, in which pairs of crisis intervention specialists meet with people in need, and about 75 walk-ins to the office for service.
Incoming call numbers vary. The addition of text messaging to the office has led to an increase in services lately, which has also led to the build up of staff at the office.
“When I first started here, there were only like seven of us. We increased that to like 10, 12, and we were staying steady around the 15 area, but then we had the ability to add interim housing coordinator,” Doerr said. “Add in CPS, so we had the ability to slowly build up to that process of getting more staff and team mobiles and getting more services that we can provide, too.”
Even after years of difficult, hourslong phone calls, Martin said she can’t imagine doing any other job.
She also said most calls at the office are able to be de-escalated, and follow-up communications with callers helps ensure that they remain stable.
“Once we’ve been able to get a family through something and when they’re appreciative, it makes us feel better, that’s what we’re here for. So, it’s a great outcome,” Martin said.
Roscoe said the range of reasons people call the crisis line for also keep things interesting and never boring. People call to talk about homelessness support, addiction recovery and even getting winter clothing — a call that came in Oct. 20 — and sometimes the person on the other side of the line is calling on behalf of someone else experiencing crisis.
Shannon Holmes, team lead at the crisis intervention center, said that in addition to enjoying getting a positive outcome for someone calling in, she enjoys the work environment, which emphasizes self-care.
“I’m 10 to 10 today; it makes it a lot easier, especially working in this field,” Holmes said, adding that it’s a four-day work week. “Five days is a bit rough, so when you can have that extra day for yourself, it is definitely worth it.”
Doerr also said the work remains rewarding. Being part of the team has helped her build her own understanding skills.
“Fifteen years, at least once a week, I’m like, ‘That was new,’” Doerr said. “I don’t define someone’s crisis.”
The phone number for the Butler County crisis line is 1-800-292-3866.
