Solutions for Suicide Prevention and Crisis Intervention Services
Crisis centers, suicide prevention hotlines, and behavioral health walk-in centers often serve as a gateway to services for those in an acute crisis. Services provided by these organizations can range from supportive listening to conducting assessments for risk of suicide and dispatching services such as Crisis Intervention Teams, or arranging for crisis stabilization or temporary hospitalization. Crisis centers, big or small, need the right technology that scales to their needs as well as the needs of the community. iCarol is used by services ranging in size and scope — from local crisis centers serving a single city or county, to large networks serving entire regions or countries like members of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and the Canadian Suicide Prevention Service.
Recruit, Train, and Retain Your Workforce
Working at a helpline or crisis center is one of the most intense types of work or volunteering one can do. Whether you operate with an all-volunteer, all-staff, or hybrid workforce model, you invest a lot of time and resources into the screening and training process. iCarol tools help enhance the volunteer/staff experience, improving morale and reducing turnover.- Screen potential staff or volunteers and accept applications online
- Create volunteer/staff profiles to store contact information, track hours, assign system permissions, and more
- Track skills and achievements and set re-certification due dates and reminders
- Build team cohesion and consistent training and instruction through in-system chatboards, training and guidance documents, call scripting, and internal chat
Meet People Where They Are
Contact centers of all kinds are noticing a decline in voice calls and higher demand to receive services through digital communication methods like Live Chat, SMS/Texting, or self-service tools through an organization’s website or app. This can be especially true for people in crisis, who may be scared or having a difficult time deciding if they are ready to reach out for assistance. For many, contemporary communication channels may be an easier first step than making a voice call. Using iCarol, you can:- Expand your service beyond phone calls to accept Live Chat, SMS/Texting, and self-service intake forms and resource exploration
- Receive texts on your existing phone number
- Integrate inbound interactions, data collection, referral, and follow-up
- Invite your website visitors or app users to explore your inventory of available counseling and other helpful community resources
Document Contacts
- Configure your iCarol Contact Forms to collect all the information you need to report to funders, stakeholders, researchers, and others
- Include scripting or instructions to guide employees through interactions as needed
- Attach intake documentation, screenings or risk/safety assessments
- Schedule follow-up activities to check in with the client’s safety plan, ensure external services were received, conduct satisfaction surveys, and provide further support
- Use Profiles to track interactions and document progress
- Create outbound calling programs and enroll clients in scheduled, ongoing listening support calls
- Authorized staff can run reports on collected data, or export it for analysis in external programs
Dispatch Services to People in Need
Following initial intake/assessment with a client, you may decide that they need immediate supports or crisis stabilization from a mobile crisis unit or crisis intervention team. You can securely share your intake and assessment information with these teams using one of many options, including:
- Assigning follow-up activities
- Securely emailing intake forms
- Exporting data to a partner’s FTP
- Sending intake to an iCarol dashboard and allow partners secure access in order to respond
- Mirroring data to CIT’s technology provider
- Transmiting data to other software or technology via API
Follow Up to Ensure Safety and Quality
Research shows that follow-up care is critical to the success of keeping people safe following suicide attempts or ideation. Following up with customers is also valuable for your quality assurance program, and collecting outcome data. Use iCarol to:- Schedule multiple follow-ups for planned check-ins
- Remind staff on shift that a follow-up is due to occur
- Use automated scheduled follow-ups to reassure, check-in and offer additional supports
- Follow-up to complete quality surveys to evaluate services provided
- Perform follow-ups through phone calls,SMS/Text, email, in-person, and more
Support Your Staff and Improve Service Delivery
Support your volunteers and staff with coaching, supervision, and encouragement whether they work in the office or remotely, and ensure service quality through:- Silently monitoring volunteer chat or SMS/Texting conversations with survivors
- Provide feedback to volunteers and staff directly on Contact Records
- Track volunteer/staff hours, trainings and certifications, and tailor system access by role
- Check in with remote employees through secure, internal chat
- Random sampling quality surveys of customers
- Generate customer surveys following Live Chat or SMS/Texting conversations
Protect Sensitive Information
Privacy and security are of the utmost importance in the work you do. iCarol enables you to:- Store your Contact Records and client data using today’s most cutting edge encryption and data security protocols
- Electronically “shred” identifying information while retaining anonymous or non-identifiable data for reporting purposes
- Choose whether to keep or delete chat conversation transcripts
- Provide end-to-end encryption for chat conversations
- Assign unique user IDs and passwords with single-sign-on also available
- Prevent access to view identifiable data through advanced security settings, certifying access by selected machines/locations, and by data partitioning
- At iCarol We Undergo:
- Annual risk assessment for HIPAA and GDPR
- Ongoing confidentiality training for staff
- Annual vulnerability scans with resolution of high and medium findings
- Regular “failover tests” to backup data centers and test restoration of data backups
- Regular reviews throughout the year with legal compliance experts, Development, and IT personnel
- Data centers audited and certified for multiple areas
Ready to Get Started?
What Can I Do With iCarol?
- Invite contacts by Phone, Live Chat, or SMS/ Texting
- Accept volunteer and employee applications online
- Assess help-seekers’ immediate needs and risk level to connect them with appropriate services resources
- Dispatch Crisis Intervention Teams
- Follow up to ensure safety, assure quality, and provide continuity of care
- Run reports for funders/stakeholders/researchers
