About Us

Your best friend. Your Dad. That lady down the street. That quiet kid in school. That loud kid in school. That dude in accounting. Your cousin in Craftsbury. That hipster in the flannel in Brattleboro. Your Grandmother. Crisis Text Line is for everyone.

Crisis Text Line is free, 24/7 support for those in crisis. Text “VT” to 741741 from anywhere in the USA to text with a trained Crisis Counselor.

This service is provided through the Vermont Department of Mental Health in partnership with the National Crisis Text Line Service.  Crisis Text Line trains volunteers to support people in crisis. With almost 30 million messages processed to date, we’re growing quickly, but so is the need.

 

Who Responds to Texters?

1. Algorithm reviews for severity. Imminent risk texters are coded orange and placed at the top of the queue.
2. Crisis Counselors. These are people over the age of 18 who apply, go through a background check, complete 34 hours of training that includes quizzes and role plays, and successfully graduate. These highly-trained volunteers are the foundation of Crisis Text Line.
3. Supervisors. These are full-time paid staff. They have a higher degree in social work, psych or another related field.

 

Our Principles

We fight for the texter. Our first priority is helping people move from a hot moment to a cool calm, guiding you to create a plan to stay safe and healthy. YOU = our priority.

We believe data science and technology make us faster and more accurate. While we love data science and technology, we don’t think robots make great Crisis Counselors. Instead, we use this stuff to make us faster and more accurate–but every text is viewed by a human.

The VT Crisis Text Line is part of the National Crisis Text Line. For more information on the National Crisis Text Line at http://www.crisistextline.org/.

See links below for media coverage of the Crisis Text Line:

WCAX

MyChamplainValley

Vermont Public Radio (VPR)

AP News

The Washington Times