San Francisco Peer-Run Warm Line – here to support the community!

Adrian-San-Mateo-caller-to-Warm-Line-683x1024, San Francisco Peer-Run Warm Line – here to support the community!, Culture Currents
Adrian, a frequent caller to the Warm Line, writes: “I’ve been calling the Warm Line for at least six months, if not longer, and all your counselors have voices like angels and are so intelligent and wonderful listeners, and they could always summarize the stress that I’m going through, and it enables me to keep working to support myself … Truthfully, they have helped me more than some psychotherapists. So I hope that you’ll continue to fund this service. Thank you.”

“I don’t know what I would have done if it weren’t for you guys just to be able to pick up the phone – to call and to have somebody to talk to who understood and was empathetic. You never think you’re going to grow up … that you’re going to end up homeless and alone. So you guys saved me, and I’m OK now. It’s been three years, and I am OK now, but it’s because of the Warm Line.”

This statement is from a frequent caller to the San Francisco Peer Run Warm Line, which is administered by the Mental Health Association of San Francisco and has been in operation since August 2014. During that time, the San Francisco Peer Run Warm Line has taken nearly 100,000 calls.

Everyone in the Bay Area is welcome to call and discuss whatever life brings – anxiety, discrimination, housing issues, money concerns, depression, interpersonal conflicts, grief or loss, hearing voices, loneliness, substance use problems or just needing someone to talk to – Warm Line counselors are available via phone and live online chat. They offer accessible, nonjudgmental support while using their personal lived experience of mental health challenges to bring empathy and understanding to the conversation.

At its peak development, the Warm Line was open 24 hours a day, but, due to funding changes, is currently limited to 36 hours per week: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 1 to 9 p.m., and Wednesdays from 2 to 6 p.m. We are hoping to secure more funding to be able to offer more hours of service to the community.

The Warm Line will return calls to those leaving messages during off hours, and the number is 415-421-1880. For online chat, please go to www.mentalhealthsf.org, which is the website of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco. Those interested in volunteering with the Warm Line can also learn more on our website at http://www.mentalhealthsf.org/warm-line-volunteering/.

The San Francisco Peer-Run Warm Line is a non-emergency resource for anyone seeking emotional support and information about mental health resources in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Warm Line provides preventative services, thus saving money from emergency room visits, police, EMT and other crisis services and serves all demographics throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. The Warm Line meets callers where they are at in their lives and supports voluntary intervention and is non-intrusive.

San Francisco Peer-Run Warm Line counselors are all peers and share from their lived experience, which includes for some of the counselors being hospitalized, having thoughts and consideration of suicide, and being homeless. They are here for you now because they’ve been there before. Give the San Francisco Peer-Run Warm Line a call today!

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