How to Volunteer for Help Hotlines

For almost every crisis you can imagine, there's a hotline to help. Some hotlines are for people suffering from psychological difficulties such as depression, bipolar disorder, alcohol abuse and suicidal thoughts. Some hotlines are for victims of recent trauma, whether the trauma is a rape or a house fire. Others help with ongoing problems -- people who need emotional support as they deal with chronic disease, or people who are coping with long-term issues of joblessness.

Some hotlines aren't for the actual victims, but they help the victims get help. You might be able to call such a hotline, for example, if you suspect elder abuse in the house down the street, or if you can tell your friend needs a way to quit drinking but you aren't sure how to approach the situation.

Hotlines can be especially important in situations where a social stigma might be attached to seeking help. The anonymity of a hotline can offer a safe way for people to obtain assistance [source: FOCUS]. The hotline makes the crucial difference between suffering in silence and taking active steps for positive change. Such hotlines can help people dealing with situations such as an unplanned pregnancy, drug abuse or an HIV diagnosis. One important set of hotlines is for gay and lesbian teens who are scared to come out to their family and friends. Research indicates that gay, lesbian and bisexual teens and young adults are at a high risk for suicide attempts, especially those who face rejection from their parents because of their sexual orientation [source: Shapiro].

There are also hotlines for a variety of less-scary reasons, such as offering recycling help, suggesting legal resources, providing homework assistance to struggling schoolchildren or supplying nonemergency medical information. These informational hotlines can be one of the easiest ways to turn your hobby -- or even your day job -- into volunteer work.

On the next page, we'll look at what it takes to help someone on a hotline.

Staffing a help hotline is not a job to be taken lightly, and organizations don't entrust it to a volunteer without careful scrutiny and training. A help hotline volunteer may be subject to a background check.

Hotline volunteering may also involve an aptitude test or evaluation, similar to what you might encounter during any other employment process. The evaluation will likely look for such interpersonal skills as patience, empathy, sensitivity, the ability to think calmly in a crisis and the ability to recognize when a situation requires help that is beyond what you can provide [source: ABA]. The hotline may particularly seek volunteers who have endured traumas similar to what callers are experiencing, although people who are still working through their own psychological problems may face additional scrutiny at certain kinds of hotlines. People with a second language or with a background in psychology or counseling may find themselves particularly in demand.

If you're selected as a hotline volunteer, you'll have to go through considerable training, which may involve extensive background work on your cause of choice, as well as crisis management, conflict resolution and simulated emergencies. In some cases and at some organizations, the training will be enough to give you paraprofessional status [source: Help Hotline Crisis Center]. There may be further evaluations following this training. You may also need to go through a probationary period or an apprenticeship period before you're allowed to work on your own.

Because this is a lot of work for an organization to undertake on behalf of a volunteer, the organization typically asks for a minimum amount of work in return -- more than is often asked of other volunteers. Hotline volunteers must often pledge a one-year commitment or a minimum number of hours to their work. The organization needs to know that it -- and the people it helps -- can depend on these volunteers.

Bottom line: If you're not sure about your ability to volunteer, put in a Saturday or two at a local nonprofit and see how it feels. If you really care about a cause, volunteering for its help hotline is a wonderful way to support it.

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