Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

1977

Thesis Director

Randall H. Best

Abstract

"Help Line of Coles County, Illinois: a crisis intervention telephone service" begins with a review of literature regarding the growth and development of hotlines in the United States. Additionally, an in-depth study is offered of a specific hotline, the Help Line of Coles County, Illinois.

There is discussion of the procedures used for screening and training volunteers, as well as discussion of comparative statistics about calls received by other hotlines.

Five forms were devised for collecting data specifically relating to the Help Line: Feedback from Volunteers, Profile of Volunteers, Profile of Calls, Feedback from Agencies, and Community Canvassing. These were used to collect information such as sex, age, and education of volunteers, volunteer attitude, time of day and day of week calls were received, primary presenting problem of caller, referrals made, community response to service quality, and community awareness of service.

Subjects were: forty volunteers working with the Help Line between May and November, 1974, one staff person from thirty different Coles County social service agencies, Coles County residents placing the first five hundred calls logged by the Help Line, and one hundred residents of Coles County (randomly selected from the 1975 Charleston-Mattoon Telephone Directory) .

The majority of volunteers reported that they liked working on the Line, and felt that they were accomplishing something worthwhile. Most volunteers said that they felt good at the end of calls. The training received was seen as adequate by the volunteers. Also, they reported that the monthly inservice meetings were beneficial.

Twice as many volunteers were female than males. All of the volunteers had some college experience. Indeed, many of them were engaged in fulltime study while working on the Line. Most of those reporting stated that they had never sought professional help for their own problems.

Approximately half of the agencies contacted reported having received referrals from the Help Line. These referrals were seen as appropriate. Almost all of those contacted saw the Line as a necessary community service.

The typical call would have occurred between 5 PM and 9 PM on a Wednesday. It would have lasted fewer than five minutes and would have concerned legal, financial or employment information.

The number of female callers was almost double that of male callers. The most frequently occurring age group of callers was that of 19 through 21 years.

Although the Help Line of Coles County, Illinois, is operated on a comparatively small scale, and although it has not been used extensively for crises, per se, there is evidence that it provides services in some important "grey" areas previously not attended to, in a manner which is low cost-low risk to clients.

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