Community Corner

People in Crisis Have Someone to Call

Answering more than 60,000 calls last year, the Walnut Creek-based Contra Costa Crisis Center is preparing for its first annual Walkathon Saturday in Heather Farm Park.

The woman wanted to die. Her life was falling apart. Just in the past few days, her husband told her he didn’t love her anymore and that he wanted a divorce. Then her doctor broke the news that he suspected a recurrence of cancer. He wanted to do some tests. 

Enough, the woman thought. She decided to kill herself that evening when she got home from work by overdosing on prescription drugs. At first, the idea of ending the pain gave her a sense of relief, but as the day wore on, she grew  terrified about her decision. Maybe she didn’t want to die but she couldn't see how her life would get better.

She felt sick and left work early, still uncertain about what she was going to do when she got home.

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Then she pulled over to the side of the road and made a call that would save her life.

She called the Contra Costa Crisis Center hotline. For more than an hour, a counselor listened, asked questions and offered suggestions. It was enough to talk the woman out of killing herself that night. The woman and the counselor came up with a plan that would keep her safe and get her help. Over the next few weeks, the woman kept in touch with the counselor. She also reconnected with family and friends and returned to her church. Six months after calling the suicide hotline, the woman reported to the Crisis Center that she was doing OK. 

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This is just one of the many stories of saving lives and directing people to help that the Walnut Creek-based Crisis Center has logged in its nearly 50 years of existence.

The center started in 1963 with a group of mental-health professionals and volunteers taking calls from depressed and suicidal people in their homes. The crisis center now occupies two floors of office space in Walnut Creek, has 22 people on staff,  250 volunteers and an operating budget of $1.8 million that allows it to provide a selection of services. 

Eighty-five of these volunteers answered 29,142 crisis calls, including 5,315 suicide calls, in 2010. In addition to answering Contra Costa County’s 24-hour crisis and suicide lines, the center operates the county's grief, homeless, child abuse and elder abuse hotlines. Moreover, the center answers all local calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255 and 800-784-2433), as well as calls to the Lifeline's Spanish-speaking suicide hotline (888-628-9454).

The center also runs a grief-counseling program—which includes group sessions and one-one-one counseling at the center or in your home--homeless services, youth services and the county’s 211 information and referral program. The 211 line, which gets about 35,000 calls a year, is a toll-free number that provides information about local health and social services.

Although a portion of its revenues comes from government grants and contracts and sales from its Leftovers Thrift shop in Walnut Creek, this nonprofit mostly relies on community support and fundraising. This Saturday, the Crisis Center will hold its first walkathon to raise funds to support its many vital programs.

The 5K walk takes place in Heather Farm Park. ABC7 news anchor Dan Ashley will greet participants as they arrive for registration, which starts at 7:30 a.m. The walk begins at 8:30.

One of the co-chairs of the event is Jim Holt, a former crisis hotline volunteer who became a client of the center’s grief program after his 20-year-old son, Ryan Holt, was killed in a motorcycle accident in Moraga in 2007.

Holt and Crisis Center Executive Director John Bateson agree that Holt’s story is a testament to how any of us could one day need the crisis center. 

It doesn’t matter who you are —your education or socioeconomic level, how “successful” you or your family are — they say. Even outwardly happy, healthy individuals and families may find themselves facing the death of a loved one, or having to deal with a child in crisis, a mental illness or someone feeling suicidal. Substance abuse and domestic violence, likewise, don't recognize socioeconomic distinctions.

 Holt's son died when his motorcycle collided with a car in their hometown. Holt, an insurance broker, said he saw a counselor to help him cope with his loss but that he benefited most from weekly grief sessions at the Crisis Center. It helped him to be in a group with other people who "know what it’s like" to lose a loved one.

Holt is considering becoming a volunteer grief counselor with the Crisis Center. As was the case when he became a crisis hotline volunteer, he will have to undergo a comprehensive training program, as well as an assessment to make sure that he’s moved far enough in his own grief to be ready to take on helping someone else. “It’s a delicate issue of when you become a grief counselor,” Holt said. 

Bateson added that, as a crisis line volunteer or as a grief counselor, “You’re working with clients to meet their needs, not to deal with your own.”

In the meantime, Holt is getting the walkathon organized — a fun and casual fundraising counterpoint to the center’s annual fundraiser in the fall. The group expects more people will get involved than with the gala, including people who have gone through the grief program and will walk in honor of a loved one they have lost.

With with walkathon coming up, Bateson outlined other notable facts and accomplishments of the crisis center: 

  • The crisis center is one of six in the United States that received funding from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to participate in a suicide follow-up call program. After someone calls the Contra Costa crisis lines and is assessed to be at moderate to high risk of suicide, a center volunteer will call back one or more times, with the caller's consent, to make sure that he or she is following the safety plan and that the individual continues to feel supported. Researchers at Columbia University are tracking the program.
  • Youth Services Coordinator LaShonda Taylor's weekly support group for 10 high-risk girls at Hercules High helped these girls change their attitude about school, reduce their truancy and markedly improve their grades. All members of the group have submitted applications to college. 
  • People write to President Obama about all sorts of topics, including about their feelings of despair of suicide. When one of those letters comes in, SAMHSA turns it over to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which in turn contacts a local agency to follow up. The crisis center recently received such a referral regarding a local woman who had lost her job as a bank vice president. Her husband also was disabled, and she feared they soon would be homeless. The crisis center's 211 director, Judi Hamphire, contacted the woman and gave her ideas for local resources that could help. The crisis center receives two to three of these White House referrals each month. 
  • The Crisis Center also has information on what to do if you suspect that someone you know is suicidal, is dealing with substance abuse, or is the victim of domestic violence, child abuse or elder abuse.  

To register for the walkathon, visit the Crisis Center's page on upcoming events. There you can download a pledge formwaiver form and route map, as well as a walkathon flier

Walkers who raise $25 or more in pledges will receive a walkathon T-shirt. Walkers who raise $100 or more will be eligible for an iPad 2 raffle. 

Here are the main numbers to call to access the Crisis Center's services:

Crisis and Suicide
800-273-TALK / 800.SUICIDE
888.628.9454 (Español) Grief
800-837-1818 Homeless
800-808-6444 Youth
800-833-2900 Information & Referral
211


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