On The Other End of The Line: Stories From NINELINE Volunteers

Every day of every year, and every hour of every day, Covenant House NINELINE volunteers wait patiently by the phone, ready and willing at any moment to answer a call of crisis.

It's not always easy to be the voice at the other end of the line. From beginning volunteers to seasoned NINELINE veterans, helping a child in crisis can be rewarding, but it can also be challenging. Sometimes racked with uncertainty, but also with a great sense of compassion and care, many NINELINE volunteers will tell you that while there are moments of great struggle at NINELINE, helping kids in crisis is the best job in the world.

Here are their stories:

Sam:

I actually heard about NINELINE by searching the web when I was looking for places to volunteer. The training was excellent. Because anxiety definitely plays a factor in working at NINELINE, we trained by acted out crisis call situations as a group. By practicing how we would respond to calls one-on-one with each other, everyone became better prepared for potentially stressful calls from kids in need. Dealing with that anxiety in a practice setting greatly prepared me to work at NINELINE and deal with real-life calls of crisis.

There really isn't a call that sticks out in my mind as the most stressful, rewarding, or moving. What I find to be really gratifying is just how appreciative most of the callers seem to be. What is fascinating is that the most of the time, the callers already have the solutions to their own problems. Just through expressing their feelings and going over their options with me on the phone, those solutions appear before them.

With a lot of callers, I just find it incredible that you can offer options to their problems and their tone immediately changes. It becomes apparent how much happier they have become over the course of only one call.

If I were speaking to someone who wanted to become a volunteer, I would tell them that being a part of NINELINE has been one of the greatest things that I've ever done. To have the opportunity to make a real difference every week is beyond words.

Olivia:

I have worked on four hotlines in the past nine years. It wasn't until I started with Covenant House that I got the opportunity to really establish a relationship with the callers -- something I always wanted from the previous hotlines, but never attained.

Covenant House is both more engaging and more challenging to me than my previous hotline experiences. By the time I joined Covenant House, I'd had a lot of practice with active listening skills, however I thought your training was particularly insightful.

Many of my friends can't imagine doing what I do. But my sister, who is a psychologist, says it's all about contained compassion.

Being a volunteer for me has been a fascinating and educational experience. Learning how to listen actively instead of popping off advice and directives has made a big difference in how I handle the people in my personal life. Learning that not all problems are solvable has been important, too.

I really love working at NINELINE.

More Information about NINELINE:

For 20 years, NINELINE has been helping people who have nowhere else to turn. Annually, over 500,000 troubled children and teens across the US, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and Guam call Covenant House's NINELINE (1 800 999-9999).

NINELINE provides callers with immediate care, help and support by highly trained counselors. NINELINE also has a database of over 30,000 local service agencies that provide immediate assistance in callers' hometowns. Although young people primarily use the service, adult family members and caregivers also call NINELINE to learn ways to help their troubled children.

NINELINE has expanded by helping children, teens, parents and caregivers via www.nineline.org. The Web site enables anyone needing help to email questions to NINELINE crisis counselors, post questions via the NINELINE forum, search NINELINE's database of 30,000 local service agencies, and download information on topics critical to today's youth.

NINELINE is multilingual, responding in English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Polish and all languages with the assistance of interpreters. NINELINE also has a TTY line (1 800 999-9915) for the hearing impaired. There are approximately 36 staff members who work in shifts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They also answer calls for Life Line, a suicide hotline, as well as hotlines for gang violence, domestic violence and victims of human trafficking. All calls are confidential.

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