Crisis Line Volunteers

Crisis Line Looking For Volunteers

“When you look at life and you look at all the situations that people can find themselves in - losing jobs, losing accommodations, not having finances, dealing with child care and single parenting, leaving hospital early and not having appropriate medication or care, bereavement. We deal with pretty much every aspect of life.” Debb Barg, Penticton Crisis Line Coordinator and former Crisis Line Volunteer.

This week is National Volunteer week and the Penticton Crisis Line needs a few good men and women to… listen.

Three times a year the Crisis Line puts out a call for volunteers. “People come and go in the Okanagan,” says Debb Barg, “and we are always recruiting help.”

The requirements are simple but demanding. You have to be a “good” listener, a person who knows how to read between the lines of what someone is saying and get to the true heart of the problem. And then, if necessary, you have to be able to give the proper referral.

“We’re not a counseling service really,” says Barg, “our main functions are to be empathetic listeners and to be able to give directions to the appropriate professional services.”

The Penticton Crisis line receives between four and five thousand calls a year, and covers the area from Summerland to the border and from Princeton to Annacis Mountain.

The volume of calls increases, according to Barg, during the Christmas holidays and during those times when the weather is bad and people find themselves housebound for extended periods. “It also get busy,” she says “ believe or not… during the two days before a full moon and the two days after.”

Volunteers receive forty-five hours of training. “Volunteers need to be trained in a lot of areas and the training is intense, says Barg, “ because each person who calls is different and you never know what you are going to have to deal with.”

The calls are confidential, there is no call display and callers do not have to give their name. The Line is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Working on the Crisis Line is volunteer work, so the pay is, well, there is no pay. But there are rewards, says Debb Barg: “I answered a call from someone who had called the previous night. The caller asked for the volunteer who had been on the night before. They wanted to give a special thanks to that volunteer and tell them they were an angel, because without that volunteer, they said, ‘I would be dead today.’”

If you would like to be a Crisis Line volunteer, call 493-2598. The next training session starts May 13.