Change as a way of life...
CSS is justifiably proud of its (almost) 50-year history as an innovative and compassionate provider of telephone counselling to the Victorian and — for the last seven years — Australian community. The following is a brief outline of the organization's growth and development in recent years.
Personal Emergency Service circa 1994
In the early nineties, Crisis Support Services was known as Personal Emergency Services Inc., and operated a generalist telephone counselling service called 'Crisis Line'. The service had a local phone number and so was effectively available only to Melbourne residents. Three phones were available, with the aim of having at least one of them staffed at all times. Staffing consisted of 260 volunteer counsellors and four paid staff who co-ordinated the service. In 1994, Crisis Line answered around 15,000 calls, with an average duration of 28 minutes.
PES's financial resources were limited. The premises consisted of 200 square meters of space in the basement of a building close to the Flagstaff Gardens. Facilities included a 'kitchenette' which could accommodate one person at a time, a frayed 'granny smith' green no-pile carpet, and floor to ceiling windows overlooking a two-meter retaining wall located outside the building. Sadly, however, the phone room had no windows, so volunteers missed out on this inspiring vista.
Despite these trying conditions, and the challenging nature of the work, morale among volunteers and staff was high. In addition to strong relationships fostered by an annual retreat, and regular social evenings, volunteers were provided with high quality training and on-going professional development. This resulted in a highly committed and skilled counselling team.
1997-9
The period between 1997 and 1999 was known as the 'Giant Leap', a time of rapid growth and expansion for the organization. By articulating a clear direction for the future, PES was able to obtain significantly more funding from philanthropic trusts than in the past. Funds were used to establish a 13-number for the counselling service (136 169). This made the service accessible to all Victorians for the cost of a local call.
The name of 'Crisis Line' was changed to CARE RING in an attempt to persuade callers that they didn't have to be in crisis to call and that telephone counselling could be aimed at preventing a crisis, rather than just dealing with one.
The funds were also used to relocate and expand the phone room, now to be known as the call centre. Ten work stations were established with call centre technology donated and supported by Callscan, an international call centre software company.
Also during this period there was a fundamental change in the PES policy in relation to working with suicidal caller. Prior to the policy change, PES policy respected a caller's stated intention to take their own life and had a 'non-interventionist' approach if a caller was adamant they wanted to die. The change was based on international research which provided evidence that most suicidal callers phoning emergency services are ambivalent about ending their lives. The policy change was also in line with the established 'duty of care' guidelines for helping services.
In 1998 funding was obtained from the State Government for suicide prevention work, and this enabled paid call centre supervisors to be employed to support volunteers and to answer calls. This was the first time the organization had been able to employ paid staff for direct service delivery. These supervisors were called Team Leaders and commenced employment in May 1998.The Team Leaders were renamed Counselling Managers some years later.
These service and infrastructure improvements resulted in the service being able to respond to many more calls. In the 1998/99 financial year CARE RING answered 47,778 calls — an increase of 63% on the previous year. Training given to counsellors in assessment and containment skills also contributed to a reduction in the average call length to 19 minutes from a long term average of around 30 minutes.
Late in 1999, in response to a submission to the Department of Human Services, CARE RING also received funding to employ suicide prevention counsellors during the early hours of the morning. This was a time when it was particularly difficult to get volunteers to work.
By the end of 1999, PES employed the equivalent of 14 full-time paid staff.
2000-2001
During this period CARE RING continued to thrive, answering almost 63,000 calls in the 1999-2000 financial year. On the down side this figure represented only 32% of incoming calls. Volunteers counsellors contributed approx 38,000 hours of counselling per annum, the equivalent of the work of 20 full-time staff. Volunteers were also active in other roles such as trainers, supervisors, mentors, administrators and promoters.
PES was the successful tenderer for a new service aimed at supporting men who were experiencing relationship breakdown, or who were hoping to improve their parenting skills. This Australia-wide telephone service was the first of its kind in the world, and the competition in the tendering process was fierce.
For PES it was a David versus Goliath contest. PES was a small, poorly funded organization unknown outside Victoria. Few staff were employed, which made the writing of such a huge and complex tender daunting. The competition consisted of a number of larger, national organizations who already had established reputations in the area of human services.
On the positive side PES had advanced telephone technology, a sound service delivery model with paid Team Leaders on duty 24 hours a day, a reputable training program which had been accredited by the State Training Board in April 1996 (the first telephone counselling service in Victoria to get its training accredited) and a passionate conviction that we could provide this needed service better than anyone else in Australia!
This self-belief proved to be well founded, as PES was granted the tender to operate an Australia-wide service to be called Mensline Australia (MLA). MLA commenced operations on September 26th 2001.
Success in gaining MLA resulted in an approach from the Child Support Agency to become involved in the trial of a service aimed at providing counselling support to separated parents. This trial was targeted at residents of Western Sydney and was known as the Supporting Parent Referral Service (SPRS). Part of the significance of the SPRS trial was that it informed a string of other services operated on behalf of CSA in the future.