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The UNM Agora Crisis Center has added an Internet component to its varied support services.
Agora Crisis Center is an organization that provides emotional support for people who are in need of help, such as people thinking about committing suicide. The center hosted a ceremony in the SUB on Monday to celebrate the release of an online instant messaging system that was added to the Crisis Chat Program as another way for people to seek help and advice.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics Report, suicide ranked as one of the top 10 causes of death in the United States in 2010.
Agora allied with a network of centers from 20 states to create the Crisis Chat Program three years ago. It includes a help hotline and an outreach component that provides pamphlets and information about trauma and suicide prevention. The program creators added the online pilot component nine months ago, and representatives said that because it has been so effective it will be added to the program permanently.
Public Relations Associate Director of Agora Crisis Center Jeremy Jaramillo said the program includes online services that will help prevent suicide in multiple demographics. He said 42 percent of people in the program’s online chat sessions have suicide-related problems, compared to 6 percent of people who call program representatives.
The Internet “is a medium that our young people are comfortable with,” Jaramillo said. “Because this medium is less attached than the phone calls, it allows them to open up easily and tell us more detailed and deeper issues and crucial problems.”
Director of the Agora Crisis Center Molly McCoy Brack said about half of people who receive help from the Crisis Chat Program are younger than 24 years old.
“Agora takes calls from everybody, but this program will help us reach new people,” she said. “If everybody is online now … why don’t we add our services online and reach out to youth that way?”
Jaramillo said Agora is lucky enough to have plenty of volunteers to provide advice on the chat service.
“We were nervous to get advertised before we actually had enough volunteers,” he said. “But now we have so many volunteers training and so many shifts of people covering chats that we feel very comfortable now.”
Jaramillo said the online service helps people deal with and solve problems that originate online, such as bullying and harassment, and allows access for a whole new demographic of people who are online.
“There are so many people out there that need our help,” he said. “Chatting sessions are crucial in our current world for suicide prevention.”
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