November- Volunteering with Crisis Textline

During the month of November, I continued my work with the Crisis Textline. Due to the upcoming holidays, there are usually spikes in the number of texters that use the text-line and the added impacts of COVID-19 this year means that there will likely be even higher numbers of people texting in due to the higher stress levels and impacts that living through a pandemic can have on a person. I conducted most of my volunteer hours after Thanksgiving and I saw extremely high numbers of people waiting to speak to a crisis counselor, along with extensive waiting times. Most of my time this month was helping people come up with coping mechanisms or plans to deal with feelings of loneliness or relationship issues that are exacerbated at the moment due to the holiday season and social isolation caused by COVID-19. This has become one of my favorite volunteer activities because it truly helps me learn how to assist someone in creating their own solutions rather than me just saying what I believe they should or should not be doing like I would with someone in my personal life. I have talked about this in my previous blog entries, but I truly believe that this is an extremely useful skill to have. I honestly think this is the most important aspect of the reflections that I have written throughout this semester because it allows me to continue to develop myself and stay engaged with the issues that people are currently experiencing across the country as this sense of isolation increases with the increasing duration of the pandemic.

Volunteer Hours for November: 5.5 hours

Volunteer Hours for Fall 2020: 13.5 hours

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October- Volunteering with Crisis Textline

This month I opted to continue my work with the Crisis Textline and completed another four hours of volunteer work with this organization. As a reminder from my post from September, the Crisis Textline is an organization that works to provide aid to those that feel like they are in crisis. This organization defines a crisis as anything that our texter feels is a crisis, this allows us to work with people going through a wide range of difficulties in life. This month I worked with people who were going through a topic that I had yet to work with anyone on yet. The impacts of living in a pandemic. Although people across the world have felt the impacts of COVID-19 it was a different experience to try and help someone cope with a situation where isolation is a key part of remaining healthy. I was able to relate to this texter on a different level then I have with many other texters, sure I have related to those who also experience anxiety and depression, but there were always factors key

February- Volunteering with Crisis Textline

Total Volunteer Hours for the Semester = 6.5 hours Volunteer Hours Completed in the Month of February = 4 hours This month I continued my work with the Crisis Textline. This month most of my time was spent talking with people was focused more on determining what resources I had at hand that could benefit these texters more so than typical coping skills, such as writing, music, talking to those they are close with. This month the people I spoke with were more directly impacted by COVID-19 and were trying to cope with the long-term effects that the pandemic can have on one’s mental health and personal relationships. One of the people that I talked with is a frontline worker who is feeling the stress of working in a pandemic while also balancing their mental illness, but I was able to provide them with a resource associated with Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), which will teach this person further coping skills and strategies similar to those that a therapist might teach you. Talking

January- Volunteering with Crisis Textline

Volunteers Hours Completed in January 2021: 2.5hrs During this month I continued my previous work with the Crisis Textline and the texters that I interacted with this month tended to have a similar theme of self-harm. I try to go into these conversations without making any assumptions or judgements towards the texters and their situations. This month I had to take the time to learn about a particular coping mechanism that a texter was using, which I was less familiar with and they had experienced judgement about from those close to them. In this moment it was not my job to critique or give my opinion to the texter regarding their chosen coping mechanism, which from what I was told was not doing any physical harm to them. Instead, I had to maintain focus on what it was the texter was seeking out help with and to then provide them with the support and resources needed so that they felt like they could move forward in their situation. It is important in moments such as these that w

Volunteering During a Pandemic- C. Powell

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