Crisis Control Center report

              CRISIS CONTROL CENTER REPORT
Crisis Control Center is a non-profit
corporation, organized about two years ago.
Our former City Manager and our former
Director of the Community Council came
to me with the suggestion that we start a
suicide prevention center in Greensboro.
I was the logical person to approach, I suppose, because of my work as National Mental Health Chairman of the Woman's Auxiliary to the AMA. I had initiated an educational program in suicide prevention after
first trying such a program in Greensboro.
It was very successful in Greensboro, and
became a most successful National Auxiliary
program. When I completed my terms, 47
states had done suicide prevention work in
varying degrees and some had actually done
a great deal. When I was asked to start
something here, I was actually rather reluctant to do so because I had been more
familiar with the community education
aspect of suicide prevention, and was less
interested in the implementation of it. However, I did participate and agreed to head
up such a program temporarily. We incorporated, enlarged the board, and then
began working toward the establishment of
a volunteer crisis control service. We insisted from the very start that it had to be
crisis overall, rather than limiting ourselves
to suicide alone. Basically, we decided that
we would establish a telephone service,
manned by volunteers who are trained in
listening, evaluating problems, and referring them to the appropriate existing community service or agency. We would have
a complete record of all community resources, and we would not duplicate any
existing services.
In working toward this goal, we wrote a
43 page Manual. We used several exisiting
manuals as a guide, of course, and we also
wrote up some specific instructions for the
volunteers. We set up a training schedule,
first for ourselves (the Board) and then
for the volunteers. We scheduled 12 hours
of training for the volunteers—6 two-hour
sessions. We gave them basic orientation,
plus specific instructions, from telephone
techniques to psychiatric emergencies, using
specialists in various fields, police, mental
health clinic personnel, etc. as instructors.
We agreed that the volunteers were to work
in pairs, and it was imperative that the
first group be properly trained. The later
crops of volunteers are not quite as rigidly
trained because we make a point of having
a new volunteer serve along with an experienced one. This on-the-job training
has helped give the volunteers more confidence. We also have a back-up team of
Board members who can give quick information when needed.
An industrial designer who teaches
commercial art at UNC-G volunteered to
design our stationery, brochures and posters.
I am enclosing the two brochures, and you
can see that these are very professionally
done. We were most fortunate. We do not
have the posters yet, but when we do get
them they will be given wide distribution
in all public places. We will have a smaller
poster which will be placed in the Duke
Power buses. The flyer is to be distributed
along with statements by several of the
public utility companies. This is planned,
but has not been done. The Holidays interfered with some of these details. The brochures have been given wide distribution,
and we always distribute them when any
of us are asked to speak at civic affairs.
Also, we prepared a form letter and mailed
it in a semi-personalized manner to the
leaders of all civic, service, business and
professional organizations in Greensboro—
and that is where most of our speaking en
gagements  are  coming from.
In the late spring, when our plans were
pretty well under way, I resigned as chairman, thinking the time had come for a
man to take over. Rev. O. Ray Moss had
been one of our Board members from our
early times, and we more or less twisted
his arm to become Chairman. It seems the
Methodist Church had tried an all-night
ministry during Lent a couple of years ago,
but discontinued it after 2 months because
they were receiving a lot of calls they were
not qualified to handle. They formed a
committee to investigate the possibility of
a suicide prevention center, but had made
no headway when I approached them. After
several changes in personnel, Ray Moss had
been appointed to head their committee.
We compared notes, and immediately decided to merge our efforts. Ray Moss was
then and still is head of the Inner-City
Ministry, which is non-denominational, and
this combination of efforts was a natural.
After much thought, we asked that the
Inner-City Ministry act as a sponsoring
agency, and this was accomplished. We
felt that it would give us "respectability"
in this church-oriented area, and I do believe it has worked well. My orientation is
more community, Ray's is more church,
and between the two of us, we have reached
a lot of people. We were first given space
in the West Market Street Methodist Church
for our Center, but it had many drawbacks,
so we begged for, and got, space in the
Inner-City Ministry Building. The Inner-
Ministry secretary occasionally answers our
telephone, our volunteers occasionally answer theirs, Ray Moss is frequently available when quick consultation is needed,
and we are all very happy with this arrangement. Of course the volunteers do not
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-CRISIS CONTROL-
(Continued from page 5)
disclose the location to avoid the possibility
of drops-ins, and the volunteers are anonymous. We have now obtained a special telephone transfer device, made especially for
us, so that if the phone rings after midnight
the call will be transferred directly to the
volunteer on duty that night. We maintain
24 hour coverage. Of course everything is
confidential.
As of last month—7 weeks after our
opening—we had 600 calls. Several of these
were severely suicidal, approximately 200
were serious problems of various kinds, but
most of them were calls made by troubled
people seeking help and information. We
keep extensive records, a log sheet, a complete telephone record, and we make up a
record on all calls. We even log hang-ups
because we know that some of our most
distressed people make as many as 10
calls, always hanging up when the phone
is answered, before they can screw up their
courage to talk to a volunteer. We have
had few prank calls, and we treat all incoming calls as bona fide. Our volunteers,
who are of exceptionally high caliber (we
have a good sprinkling of Ph.D.'s) have
quickly become more secure in handling
difficult calls, and do a superb job. Morale
is very high.
One of our most important objectives
had to be publicity. We were afraid of
premature publicity, but wanted the right
kind of publicity at the right time. We
worked with a newspaper reporter and he
became an ex-officio board member, as well
as television people. They were very much
interested and most cooperative. They
recognized that we were dealing with a
sensitive situation and premature publicity
could be very damaging. Last May I did
a television interview program, indicating
that CCC was in the planning stages. I've
done two more interview programs, and
on the day we opened we had television
and radio news coverage. We have had
newspaper coverage, feature articles, and
television spot announcements, since then
showing our CCC emblem, and giving a
brief outline of our activities and services.
Whenever television cameras or newspaper
photographers want pictures of the Center
and/or volunteers, we permit them only
to photograph the back of their heads. We
do not want the volunteers to be recognized,
thus hopefully eliminating telephone calls
at their home. We have mostly women
volunteers during the day, but almost exclusively men at night.
Financing has not been a problem so
far. We are independent of any community
organizations, although we accept help from
whoever wants to help us. The Jaycees have
furnished money (substantial) and volunteers. Several churches have made donations, the Mental Health Society gave us
$300, and many individuals have given
varying sums of money. The greatest contributions have come in goods and services.
For example, the art work was free, but the
printing was done at cost. We have no
rent to pay, and our telephone costs are
modest. We have a part-time coordinator
of volunteers who is our only paid person.
We have been given furniture, equipment,
including  a brand-new electric  typewriter!
We have only had to whimper about something we need, and it seems to be forthcoming. We have not begged for anything.
We have been asked what we need and
want. This may indicate to you the kind
of community support we have gained. The
Junior League is interested in contributing
volunteers and money. The Inner-City
Ministry which contributed a pretty nest
egg, is willing to give more. We are rendering a valuable community service, and this
is becoming recognized. We have intentionally stayed away from United Fund, and
plan to continue this separation, although
we freely refer to the various United Fund
agencies. We feel we can receive more
community support as an independent
agency. We do not duplicate the work of
any other agency or service.
We have obtained quite a bit of publicity and recognition on a national level
with this. I had known some of the leaders
in suicide prevention in my earlier work
and did not hesitate to keep them informed
and ask help and advice. They are quite
enthusiastic about our type of operation
and feel that we are more on the right track
than the regular suicide prevention centers.
At the suicide prevention centers, they admit frankly that fully 80% of their calls are
NON-SUICIDAL, so when we decided to
tackle crisis situations of all sorts, we hit
the most critical area of community concern.
The AMA is interested and so is NIMH
and we have promised to keep them informed. Our State Medical Society is also
interested and hopes that Greensboro's Crisis
Control Center is going to serve as a model
for other cities or other states.
Trudy Garrard
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