TEEN LIFELINE INC

Teen Lifeline's ultimate goal is to reduce the number of adolescent suicides in Arizona by enhancing resiliency in youth and fostering supportive communities. We empower adolescents to make healthy decisions through our peer-to-peer crisis hotline, Life Skills Development Training, and Prevention & Education Outreach Services. Teen Lifeline seeks to educate youth and adults (parents, educators, and community members) about evidence-based suicide prevention methods.

Teen Lifeline pursues its goal of reducing the adolescent suicide rate in Arizona through a combination of our three programs: The Crisis Hotline, Community Education and Outreach, and Life Skills Development Training.

1. The Crisis Hotline is our cornerstone program. In 2022 youth reached out to Teen Lifeline for help by call or text over 43,000 times. As has been true for the past several years, approximately one in three calls are about depression and suicide.

2. Our Prevention Education and Outreach Services provide suicide awareness and prevention education opportunities across Arizona. Teen Lifeline's Master's level Behavioral Health Clinicians provide evidence-based suicide prevention training to all education personnel, from Superintendents to bus drivers. These Clinicians also train counseling and other educators on best practices intervention procedures for students in crisis. In the classroom, Clinicians present suicide awareness and prevention workshops as well as workshops on grief, dying, stress, and anxiety.

3. Life Skills Development Training is offered to teens age 15 and over who want to become Peer Counselors on the crisis hotline. This program includes 72 or more hours of training on communication and listening, coping tools, problem-solving, and healthy decision-making. Teens learn responsibility, accountability, how to communicate with adults, and other valuable life skills. Peer Counselors are supervised by Master's level Behavioral Health Clinicians.

These three programs are fundamental to our mission of enhancing resiliency in youth and fostering supportive communities to prevent adolescent suicide.

Teen Lifeline's staff is well-equipped to maximize its adolescent suicide prevention impact.

We have increased capacity for our Prevention Education and Outreach services to respond to the ever-increasing demand for school-based workshops and educator training. Prevention staff includes both Master's level Behavioral Health Clinicians and individuals pursuing Master's degrees.

Teen Lifeline keeps its pool of Peer Counselors robust with the help of the Youth Services Associate. This employee focuses on recruiting and training new teen volunteers to serve as Peer Counselors. We currently offer the Life Skills Development Training four times per year, with approximately 25 teens completing each training. Each teen volunteer answers on average over 450 phone calls per year. The average length of stay for a Peer Counselor is three years, creating a superbly connected, stable youth volunteer corps with deep experience responding to crisis calls from youth needing someone to listen.

Teen Lifeline owns its headquarters and routinely invests in improvements and upgrades to its operating assets. In early 2019 telecommunications equipment, essential to effective operations, was upgraded and expanded. This upgrade prepares Teen Lifeline to meet demands for staff and communications growth.

In 2020, Teen Lifeline extended its services for its hotline, volunteers, and prevention education to accommodate the needs of social distancing and address the mental health impact of the pandemic, adding virtual suicide prevention trainings and 60 hours per month to its crisis texting services.

In 2021, Teen Lifeline continued its extended services and earned accreditation from the International Council for Helplines.

In 2022, Teen Lifeline launched a pilot Caring Contacts program to support youth through the transition exiting in-patient mental healthcare—a high-risk period for youth experiencing crisis.

The Board of Directors guiding Teen Lifeline's direction adhere to the highest standards of fiduciary duty and ensure the sound fiscal operations of all aspects of the organization. Each member fully embraces Teen Lifeline's mission and readily advocates for the mission and for financial support within the broader community.

In addition, Teen Lifeline was the first peer-to-peer hotline accredited by the American Association of Suicidology. This accreditation is earned every three years by demonstrating adherence to best practice models in suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention services. The accreditation has been maintained without interruption since it was first awarded in 2003. At the state level, we are endorsed by the Arizona Suicide Prevention Coalition.

Teen Lifeline has had a substantial impact on youth suicide prevention in Arizona since its inception in 1986. The crisis hotline and Life Skills Development Training are the oldest programs with Prevention Education and Outreach growing exponentially since 2010.

The Student ID Initiative was introduced in 2015, placing Teen Lifeline's contact information and message of hope on the back of student IDs in one high school. By 2020, the Initiative grew by over 2,000%; to date, over half a million students across 500+ schools carry Teen Lifeline's affirming message and phone number on their IDs. Teen Lifeline intends to keep expanding this initiative statewide.

In 2016, Teen Lifeline launched its text messaging service. That year also saw the launch of Teen Lifeline's eLearning program. In conjunction with EMPACT-SPC and the Arizona Suicide Prevention Coalition, a free postvention eLearning course is available to educators across Arizona. The eLearning program is currently under expansion. These courses will satisfy educator requirements for continuing education credits.

Expanding Prevention staff has had the largest impact on Teen Lifeline's accomplishments in the past 5 years. IN 2016, 70,000 people were reached through prevention and outreach while in 2017 that number jumped to 115,000. The most dramatic growth was in 2018 when 334,771 people were reached, more than double 2017 numbers.

Teen Lifeline plans to expand Prevention Education and Outreach services to communities statewide. Prevention coordinators are busy building collaborative relationships with schools across Arizona to expand the student ID initiative to all middle and high schools.

Teen Lifeline's board and leadership focus on solid core competencies, program growth, and responding to community and youth needs to prevent youth suicides.

The mission of Teen Lifeline is to prevent teen suicide in Arizona through enhancing resiliency in youth and fostering supportive communities. Our work supports the vision of a world where all youth possess a sense of connectedness and hope for their future.

While lofty, Teen Lifeline's stakeholders are confident Teen Lifeline has the resources, personnel, and data-driven policies to stand behind these performance expectations.