A Washington Post article shares the importance of the 988 Crisis LIfeline on the one-year anniversary of it’s launch.
“Before the rollout of 988, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline was 1-800-273-8255.
It was largely ignored by the teens whose suicide rates began a steep climb in 2008 and nearly doubled by 2018, according a study in the Annals of Pediatric and Child Health. There was a brief dip for the next two years, then suicides across the nation surged in 2021 — during the pandemic, according to numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By 2021, nearly a quarter of American high-schoolers said they’d considered suicide, up from 16 percent 10 years ago, according to a study by Pew Research.
Teens returned to the call lines again this year, after the simpler, more memorable 988 opened up, accessible through text and chat.
It’s working.
Compare May 2023 to May 2022. Calls increased by 45 percent, chats by 52 percent and — get this — texts increased by 938 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”
Read the full article here, including metrics and quotes from our staff.