Video Transcript:

Voiceover:

Thank you for watching Paper to practice evidence-based advocacy made simple. In this video, we will discuss the importance of web chat and text-based hotlines. As many organizations are adding these hotline formats to their services, we hope this video will provide resources for supporting both survivors and hotline responders. In this expansion of hotline services, sexual violence greatly impacts a survivor and their community. Studies show that 43.6% of women and 24.8% of men have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime. People of marginalized identities such as those who are black, gay, or bisexual, transgender or gender non-binary have a disability or have several intersecting marginalized identities experience higher rates of sexual violence than their peers. Sexual violence can have long-term effects on both a survivor’s mental and physical health. That’s why it’s incredibly important to support survivors and provide the resources they need when they need it. Hotlines are one of the key resources that provide this meaningful help for survivors.

Adding web chat or text-based options to existing hotlines ensures that survivors can access support quickly and conveniently. In this video, we will hear from associate professors at Michigan State University and University of Michigan, Dr. Carrie Moylan and Dr. Michelle Munro-Kramer about their and others’ research on best practices for web and text-based hotlines. We will also hear from Kathleen Miller, the associate Director of MSU’s Center for Survivors on the benefits of a web-based hotline. The Center for Survivors provides free and confidential individual counseling, advocacy, and support groups to MSU students, staff, and faculty, as well as a 24 hour hotline crisis chat and advocacy services to anyone in the Greater Lansing community. First, let’s discuss the importance of both call and web-based hotlines.

Hotlines are a core component of advocacy work and survivor support. Many survivors never seek help from formal support services such as counseling resources or healthcare providers. This is why hotlines are central to advocacy as they’re a low barrier, anonymous means of entry for support and services. Hotlines also provide immediate access to these support resources and services, which is what many survivors may need at the time of help seeking. Providing immediate low barrier access to services is one of the many reasons why hotlines have become an integral part of advocacy work. Traditionally, hotlines have been considered a call based operation with survivors speaking directly to hotline respondents via phone call. In recent years, there has been a shift with web and text-based hotlines growing in popularity, expanding the way hotline responders communicate with survivors, and creating new avenues for seeking support using preferred means of communication such as texting. Younger generations have shown that they prefer texting over phone calls as a way to communicate and receive information. With the increase of interest in text-based hotline communication, there arises a need to adjust accordingly and create new and effective practices in internet facilitated crisis intervention.

In order to build rapport with the individuals using a web or text-based hotline who we will refer to as chatters, the traditional hotline techniques must be adjusted to accommodate the web or text format. Communication from those responding. Who we will refer to as responders varies when using a text-based format as opposed to the traditional call based hotline. For example, there are fewer ways to assess and communicate emotion, empathy, or connection over text. Response rates may also be slower with web or text-based hotlines as typing a response can take longer. Despite these differences, web and text-based hotlines provide numerous benefits for both the survivors and hotline responders.

Dr. Michelle Munro-Kramer:

Thinking about the benefits of a web or text-based hotline, I think about both the chatters as well as the responders. So for the chatters web and text-based hotline really allow the individuals who have experienced this trauma to connect when and where they feel most comfortable. There can still be concerns about your voice being heard and others overhearing what you’re saying if you live in a shared living environment,

Dr. Carrie Moylan:

That it offers some increased privacy and anonymity for survivors, and this might be especially important for college students who may lack access to private spaces to have phone calls. Being able to text a hotline may give them a bit more privacy.

Kathleen Miller:

Even in a classroom setting, if someone feels themselves being triggered, needs to speak with someone, they can still with that increased privacy be able to reach out.

Dr. Michelle Munro-Kramer:

Using a Weber text base hotline can allow for some language support, so this might be related to an actual different language that someone speaks, but also looking at abbreviations and different types of language that individuals might use to describe a trauma or an instance of trauma.

Dr. Carrie Moylan:

The sort of slower pace of a text-based conversation allows somebody for whom English is not their first language to use Google Translate or take some time to look up what a word means or the right word they want to use in that context because there isn’t that pressure to speak immediately like you might have on a phone call.

Dr. Michelle Munro-Kramer:

Web and text-based hotline really allows them time to process their thoughts, emotions, and what they wish to share.

Dr. Carrie Moylan:

Another benefit is that on hotlines, when you’re sharing resources with a survivor or maybe referral to counseling or some other type of service on a text or web-based hotline, you can put the link to that service directly into the chat.

Kathleen Miller:

Our volunteers really find it to be helpful as well of kind of having frequently used resources that they share and the ability to pull those and support the survivor in the moment.

Dr. Michelle Munro-Kramer:

It really facilitates the use of templates, sharing common resources, as well as pasting links, and this can be really helpful for the novice volunteer or the someone that may not have quite as much experience responding to instances of trauma. The templates ensure that the same information is shared repeatedly with chatters, and it also allows resources to be shared that are on a campus or in a community very consistently. One of the other really important components, I think, is that it allows the responder, the volunteer responder time to thoughtfully compose a response and if needed, consult with a colleague or supervisor. And so having the ability to stop for a minute, compose a thoughtful response, or ask a trusted colleague or supervisor how they might respond or can be really helpful in ensuring that you’re providing kind of accurate and emotionally sensitive information to the chatter.

Kathleen Miller:

So whenever volunteers are responding to Survivor Chats, they always have a supervisor on the backend that is there

Dr. Carrie Moylan:

To support them, and in web and text-based crisis lines, that ability to consult with a supervisor can be done really seamlessly and without the survivor even knowing that that’s happening in the background, but also for the survivor, it gives them time to gather their thoughts, take a break when they need to before they feel like they need to respond. We also have found that for some survivors, they find it easier to write out what they’re thinking than to say the words out loud. Sometimes it provides just enough emotional distance to be able to talk about things that might be difficult to speak about on the phone with somebody.

Kathleen Miller:

Another benefit that we have found in our text-based chat is that in our call based hotline, previously we have used a answering service that involves wait times with the chat. As soon as the user sends the chat, our volunteer receives that chat, and there is no wait times in between when the person is seeking help and when we’re able to respond

Dr. Carrie Moylan:

With text-based crisis lines. There also is a record of the conversation that you can scroll back through the conversation to reference details that were shared earlier, and this allows for the responder to really be able to respond to things that maybe were missed earlier in the conversation to come back around to details in a way that isn’t quite as easily possible with phone calls.

Dr. Michelle Munro-Kramer:

Being able to recall those very specific details I think can be really helpful to demonstrate to the chatter that you’re paying attention, you’re invested in this conversation and you want to help them with their goals or whatever needs they’ve established during the communication.

Kathleen Miller:

For example, a chat may look like the volunteer being able to say, Hey, earlier in the conversation you said you were interested in counseling. If that’s something you’re still interested in, I could provide some referrals. So being able to respond to the chats in the moment, but then also reference previous chats has been a really helpful tool all,

Dr. Carrie Moylan:

And it’s also helpful for the chatter to have that record of the conversation because they can also go back to find details in the conversation to go back to links that were provided earlier in the conversation so that record of the conversation can be helpful for both sides.

Dr. Michelle Munro-Kramer:

So when considering the preference between traditional kind of call based or telephone-based hotlines in web or text-based hotlines, I really think it’s a matter of preference. They both have benefits as well as some drawbacks that different individuals might prefer. So again, if you feel comfortable with a phone, if you’re in a place where you can have privacy for a phone call versus if you are in some sort of community living environment, that could be another reason to really kind of prefer that web or text-based chat. And really what we want to give survivors is options and the ability to contact support and resources in a way that they feel most comfortable.

Dr. Carrie Moylan:

So what we found in our research is in the first year that Center for Survivors offered a chat-based hotline, we found that the number of phone calls on their hotline did not go down. Instead, there was an increase in the total number of contacts, meaning that we sort of added options for survivors and others to access resources, which might indicate that there is a need for text-based hotlines, but it’s not going to make the phone-based hotline unnecessary. That both options for how to seek help are going to be important, and by adding a text-based hotline, you may open up opportunities for seeking help that maybe didn’t exist before.

Voiceover:

With the differences in benefits and drawbacks for call and web-based hotlines, there also arises a need to train responders differently. For each hotline format, we will discuss this next. Crisis intervention is one of the main skills hotline responders are trained on. Crisis intervention focuses on managing feelings in the current moment and stabilizing the individual in crisis. It is not meant to provide long-term healing, but rather is a tool to address immediate concerns and connect survivors to resources to support their healing journey. A core aspect of this training is the use of empathy and open-ended questions to encourage reflection on thoughts and feelings. The specific crisis intervention skills needed may vary based on the context of the conversation and depending on if it’s handled over the phone or chat, chat, responders must be ready for a variety of different scenarios. Chats can either be extremely short with the chat or not responding after their initial message or very long.

With more in-depth discussions of topics related to sexual assault, relationships and coping, some chats may end abruptly and without a formal closing or goodbye. This could look like the chatter not responding after getting their specific question answered or ending the chat without an obvious reason. This behavior does not necessarily mean the chat was unsatisfactory. In fact, it most often appeared that the chatter simply got what they needed from the chat and left the chat portal. This can oftentimes leave the responder feeling as though the conversation has not been finished, even if the chatter appears no longer active. In situations where it is unclear whether the chatter has finished the chat or is perhaps thinking or otherwise taking a break from chatting, the hotline responder might check in after long silences to ensure that the chatter knows the responder is still present, and to make sure the chatter is receiving the important information and resources shared.

Though it can be tempting for hotline responders to take their time to compose a thoughtful response, they should be careful not to create lengthy delays, as this could be anxiety producing for the chatter, or could damage rapport by making the chatter feel as if the hotline responder is not engaged. Particularly in situations when the chatter just shared emotionally charged content. There are a number of basic and advanced rapport building skills needed to successfully monitor a web or text-based hotline. However, these skills me differently in various chats, depending on the topics being discussed, the length of the chat and other factors when used consistently and with expertise, these skills can enhance the quality of the interaction or can detract from the overall quality of the interaction if not used well. In this video, we learned that hotlines are important when providing survivors with timely resources for their mental and physical health. We also learned about the various benefits of using a web or text-based hotline and how the training for these different hotline formats needs to change accordingly. In the next video, we will talk with researchers about what inappropriate chatter entails and how responders and supervisors can respond in order to protect themselves from vicarious trauma.