Crisis at CrisisLink: Increasing the Retention Rate for Crisis Workers Answering a Suicide Crisis Line

Abstract

Crisis centers are tasked with answering life’s most difficult calls and, as a result, many crisis centers experience high turnover among their call handlers. This quality improvement project explores the issue of crisis worker retention at PRS CrisisLink, a 24/7/365 crisis hotline, textline, and chatline serving northern Virginia and providing backup support for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL). Using Stamm’s Compassion Satisfaction-Compassion Fatigue (CS-CF) framework, this project seeks to discover the extent to which CrisisLink’s crisis workers experience compassion satisfaction (CS), and how CS can be maximized in the organization, as well as the extent to which the center’s crisis workers experience the two dimensions of compassion fatigue (CF): burnout (BO) and secondary traumatic stress (STS)—and the ways in which these negative dimensions can be minimized. A mixed methods study included an administration of the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL-5) as well as qualitative interviews, and found that, overall, CrisisLink’s employees benefit from high CS and relatively low CF. Still, five recommendations for maximizing CS and minimizing CF are identified in the areas of (i) peer support, (ii) professional progression, (iii) feedback, (iv) scheduling, and (v) managing crisis workers’ exposure to traumatic calls.