[NYAPRS Enews] Warm Lines: Peers Helping Peers

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Warm Lines: Peers Helping Peers

Featuring The Metro Boston Recovery Learning Community 

Recovery to Practice Weekly Highlights  November 12, 2010

 

What is a warm line? While definitions can vary, a warm line is a
peer-run listening phone line staffed by people in recovery themselves.
Peer operators are trained to attentively and empathically listen to
anonymous callers, offer compassion and validation, and assist callers
in connecting with their own internal resources, strengths, and
direction. 

 

A fundamental principle of warm lines is a belief that within each peer
is a unique value, an emergent strength, and wisdom. When callers
present problems, they are encouraged to facilitate their own
exploration of the associated issues and concerns. Operators tend to
refrain from offering direct advice, but rather engage callers as their
peers. Operators talk about day-to-day experiences in living with
behavioral health issues and concentrate on the transformation and
recovery possibilities from a place where many people feel disabled,
isolated, and perhaps stuck. The operators can provide local, State, and
national resources to assist callers in their recovery. The message of
hope is emphasized, because operators themselves offer living examples
of personal accomplishment and achievement of wellness.

 

The Metro Boston Recovery Learning Community (MBRLC) is an entirely
peer-run organization, funded by the Massachusetts State Department of
Mental Health and the Northeast Recovery Learning Community. It is
dedicated to providing support, education, and advocacy by providing
opportunities and resources for individuals in finding their own paths
to mental health recovery. The MBRLC Peer Warm Line, like the MBRLC
itself, is staffed entirely by people who are in recovery from
psychiatric conditions. Because each shift has two peers (an operator
and a more-seasoned shift leader) staffing the line, there is an
opportunity for peer support and coaching several times each shift.
Staff members are trained extensively before they begin fielding calls
and then undergo continuing education training every 2 to 3 months. The
hours of operation are Tuesday through Sunday, 4-8 p.m., with
Spanish-speaking operators available on Sundays and Tuesdays. 

 

Based at Boston Medical Center, the Peer Warm Line is conveniently
located across the hall from the Boston Emergency Services Team (BEST).
BEST provides 24-hour services for adults and youth in need of immediate
psychiatric intervention. Individuals who contact BEST are treated by
experienced, master's level clinicians, physicians, peer specialists,
and family partners who specialize in rapid community response to those
in psychiatric crisis. Because the BEST staff must handle the calls
requiring immediate attention (of which there are many), the Peer Warm
Line has been useful in alleviating those calls that are not emergency
situations but are simply in need of a compassionate listener. Thus,
calls may flow back and forth across the hall: The emergency team sends
non-urgent calls to the warm line operators. A caller who needs a higher
level of attention and who would benefit from a trained crisis clinician
will, conversely, have his or her call transferred (with the caller's
permission) to a master's-level counselor across the hall, who
determines the level of emergency involved and care and safety required,
and then helps facilitate a positive outcome. 

 

The Peer Warm Line is accessible through 877.733.7563, a toll-free
number that can be easily remembered, as it spells 877.PEER.LNE on a
standard phone.

 

MBRLC additionally hosts the site, http://www.warmline.org. This site
contains links to warm lines by State, offers a link to mental health
peer-operated crisis respite programs, and provides access to warm line
electronic mailing subscriptions as well as peer-run respite electronic
mailing subscriptions. 

 

For information on the Peer Warm Line, contact Supervisor Chuck
Weinstein, LMHC, NCC, at 617.305.9989 or info at bostonresourcecenter.org.

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