Mental Health help line in Oak Ridge over 50 years old
Contact Care Line has spent more than 50 years helping people going through mental health crises.
“50 years to the day from the first volunteer who said ’This is Contact Care. How may I help you?’” Bruce Marshall, executive director of Contact Care in Oak Ridge, said at an event last November. “What we do is grounded in the act of listening.”
As stated on the organization’s official website, Contact started as an American offshoot of the Australian organization Lifeline.
A group of ministers from the Oak Ridge Ministerial Association looked at setting up the Oak Ridge group in 1972.
The program started training people to answer mental health crisis calls in 1973. All of Contact Care’s services are free.
Since 2014, the group has answered calls for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline for people in the Knoxville area who call 800-525-TALK or 800-SUICIDE.
Two other Contact Care programs focus on people in different age ranges.
Contact Reassurance focuses on calls to alone or homebound seniors. It makes daily pre-arranged calls to reassure them.
Lifeline Crisis Chat provides mental health crisis intervention by chat and text services, which Contact Care’s website states helps it better reach younger people.
“We have young people texting us between classes in school just to get through their day,” said Scott Payne, outreach support group manager.
“We are carrying on in our tradition,” he said regarding his organization’s work generally. The chat is available online at 988lifeline.org/chat/.
The group also trains people in different topics related to suicide prevention, ranging from first aid to awareness.
Contact Care can organize training events at businesses, schools, churches, synagogues and other places.
Anyone interested may call Contact Care’s business office at 865-312-7450.
For more information on Contact Care, go to the website contactlistens.org/ or email office@contactlistens.org for non-crisis related questions.
The group states it depends on donations, which are tax deductible.