Wisconsin's 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Sees Increase in Callers

Wednesday, August 24th, 2022 -- 10:01 AM

(By Evan Casey, Wisconsin Public Radio) Wisconsin's 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is already seeing a big increase in callers one month after the launch of the new number.

According to Evan Casey of Wisconsin Public Radio, the call center, managed by Family Services of Northeast Wisconsin, used to average around 29,000 calls a year. With the change over to the three-digit 988 lifeline phone number, the center received 6,000 calls just in July, according to data from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. It launched on July 16.

The center was able to answer about 4,400 of those calls, with the remaining calls sent to a backup center. Caroline Crehan Neumann, the crisis services coordinator for DHS, said the 988 number is easy to remember and makes it simple for people to reach out for help.

But she also said the lifeline had already been seeing monthly increases in use since December 2021. "We’ve been seeing these increases in contacts month to month far before 988 was really spoken about in public in Wisconsin, and so we are happy about that, we feel good about that," Crehan Neumann said. 

The lifeline, created through the National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act, has been years in the making. Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin was one of four senators, two Democrats and two Republicans, who introduced the legislation.

Former President Donald Trump signed it into law in 2020.  The state received a $1.7 million federal grant for the program, 85 percent of which will go to Family Services of Northeast Wisconsin.

Those funds will allow Family Services to hire call counselors and expand their call center to deal with the increase in calls. Counselors at the Green Bay nonprofit work to provide local access for people suffering from mental health crises across the state.

DHS said there were around 1,000 more calls answered in July 2022 compared to April 2022. The center has hired 13 staff since that time.

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