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About the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-TALK (8255), is a federally funded, 24-hour, toll-free suicide prevention service comprised of more than 120 individual crisis centers across the country. This service is available to anyone in suicidal crisis, emotional distress or those concerned about a friend or loved one. To see a map of crisis centers in the network, please click here.

Joining the Network

Criteria: The Lifeline is recruiting crisis hotlines that are committed and willing to participate in the national effort to reduce the incidence of suicide. Crisis hotlines need to meet basic operational criteria, including:

  1. Certification or accreditation (please click here for details)
  2. Appropriate training and supervision in lethality assessments
  3. Willingness and ability to participate in monitoring and program evaluation activities
  4. Willingness to respond with emergency response and rescue in situations of imminent harm

Benefits: Crisis hotlines are able to choose their coverage areas. Calls can be routed based on county codes, ZIP codes or area codes. Additionally, crisis hotlines can serve as backup for other areas. As part of the network, crisis hotlines receive:

  1. An annual stipend
  2. Individualized monthly call-data reports
  3. Warm-transfer technology
  4. Web-based, real-time call-trace capability
  5. Technical assistance with marketing and promotional efforts
  6. Access to coordinated networking opportunities with more than 120 other participating crisis hotlines.

Please click here to submit an online application for membership. To learn more about joining the network, please contact our director of network development:

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline grant is part of the National Suicide Prevention Initiative, a multi-project effort led by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s Center for Mental Health Services. It is administered through Link2Health Solutions Inc., an organization experienced in crisis, information, and referral hotline management in partnership with the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, which assists in developing the network to ensure broader capacity to respond to callers as well as Rutgers Graduate School for Applied and Professional Psychology and Columbia University’s Research Foundation for Mental Health the project’s evaluation team.