-
"I'm 14 and I want to go home."
-
"My name is Beth, I'm here for you,
-
tell me more."
-
"I've run away before,
-
but I've never been involved
with anything like this.
-
I think they put drugs in my liquor."
-
"It sounds like you fell you're not safe.
-
The fastest way for me to get help to you
-
is for you to call 911."
-
"LOL, Beth.
-
If they hear me, they'll kill me.
-
They're about to send another man in
to have sex with me,
-
please hurry."
-
"OK, it sounds like you're in danger.
-
I can call 911 for you and send help.
-
You're being very brave."
-
"Thanks, Beth.
-
Tell the police to be careful,
these men are armed."
-
I can share this story with you
-
because it was widely reported
in news outlets throughout the country.
-
We did call 911.
-
The police rescued this girl,
-
two other girls,
-
and arrested three men,
-
all at the "Motel 6" in San Jose.
-
My name is Nancy Beth Lublin.
-
I'm the cofounder and CEO
of Crisis Text Line,
-
the free 24/7 service
-
that helps people by text and messenger,
-
with mental health
and behavioral health issues.
-
And when I go on the platform
as a crisis counselor,
-
I use the alias Beth.
-
I happened to be the crisis counselor
who took that conversation.
-
But this is what Crisis Text Line is.
-
It's strangers helping strangers
in their darkest moments
-
to stay alive, feel less alone,
-
and to remind them how strong they are.
-
Crisis Text Line launched
quietly in August 2013,
-
in Chicago and in El Paso
-
and within four months,
-
we were in all 274 area codes
of the United States,
-
because people used the service,
-
had a great experience
and shared it with their friends,
-
that's organic growth.
-
And in six and a half years,
-
we've now processed
about 150 million messages.
-
The people who use
our free 24/7 service
-
skew young,
-
because it's text, so they skew young.
-
Forty-five percent
are under the age of 17.
-
Also poor, racially diverse,
-
17 percent identify as Hispanic,
-
and 44 percent LGBTQ.
-
The top five issues
that we see are relationships,
-
depression, anxiety, self-harm,
-
and in approximately one
in four conversations,
-
suicidal ideation.
-
Everyone texting us is unhappy.
-
Yet we normally have
about an 86 percent satisfaction rating
-
from our texters.
-
What makes it so good?
-
The technology, the data and the people.
-
So, the technology.
-
It is not an app.
-
It's not something you have to download.
-
It's free,
-
there's no complicated intake survey,
-
so it's really user-friendly.
-
You just text us.
-
We use machine learning
to stack rank the queue
-
based on severity.
-
Kind of like a hospital emergency room
would take the gunshot wound
-
before the kid with a sprained ankle.
-
We work the same way.
-
So we take the high-risk cases first.
-
So the person who swallowed
a bottle of pills
-
would come before someone else.
-
This is data science to save lives.
-
But it's humans who do the counseling.
-
We've trained over 28,000
volunteer crisis counselors
-
who apply online,
go through a background check,
-
and then about a 30-hour training.
-
And if they pass,
-
not everybody passes,
-
there's only a 33 percent pass rate,
-
they can save lives from their couch.
-
It's a new gig economy for volunteerism,
-
like Uber or Lyft for volunteerism.
-
And we also have full-time staff
-
with a master's degree
in a relevant field.
-
They're supervisors,
-
and they watch every conversation
and step in if needed.
-
Thanks to this technology and data
-
and our volunteer labor model,
-
we're able to reach
tons of people in pain.
-
People who don't have access
to other resources,
-
like the gay teenager
who can't share with his parents,
-
because they keep telling him
to pray the gay away.
-
Or the girl who can't sleep at 2 am
-
because she's got anxiety about finals
-
and she doesn't want to disappoint
people who love her.
-
So they text us.
-
And we love on them.
-
And we support them,
-
and we remind them how strong they are.
-
And we work on a plan
together to stay safe.
-
And we tell them that if this felt good,
-
sharing with us,
-
and 68 percent of people say
they've shared something with us
-
they've never shared with another human,
-
so if it feels good to share with us,
-
maybe find just one other person
in your life tomorrow to share with.
-
And after our conversation,
-
they put that safety plan in place.
-
And maybe they go to sleep.
-
Or they journal.
-
Or they listen to BTS or Lizzo,
-
or they write a letter to their sister
-
or their boss or to themselves,
to read in 12 months.
-
They stay safe.
-
Sometimes, people have the ideation,
-
the plan, the means and the timing
-
to hurt themselves or someone else,
-
and we can't deescalate.
-
Like, the man in Texas,
five years ago on Christmas Eve,
-
who told us he only felt pleasure
when he inflicted pain
-
and he wanted to kill women
and was going to do it that very night.
-
In those imminent risk situations,
-
we call 911.
-
And thank goodness for 911,
-
because in that Texas incident,
-
as reported in the news,
-
they did send help,
they sent the police to his home,
-
and they found him with an arsenal
of loaded weapons
-
and on record as being
in possession of a human foot.
-
Now active rescues
are less than one percent
-
of our conversations.
-
But still, that's about 26 a day.
-
And six of those a week are for homicide.
-
Typically school shooters.
-
We have now completed
more than 32,000 active rescues.
-
Our own data and external studies
-
show that we're very good at saving lives,
-
and at changing lives.
-
We use the data to make it possible
for us to change systems.
-
So for example,
-
we've learned the best way,
the best language to risk assess
-
around suicidal ideation
-
isn't to use the words,
"Are you thinking of committing suicide?"
-
Instead, it's to use the words like,
-
"Are you thinking of death or dying?"
-
Or, "Are you thinking
about killing yourself?"
-
And now, we've shared that language
with journalists to adopt this.
-
We've shared that language with activists.
-
We're advising the National Emergency
Number Association,
-
the 911 Association,
-
on best practices
for first responders in suicide.
-
And we're working with
the Veterans Administration
-
to identify suicidal ideation
and intent in veterans.
-
Pain isn't an American experience.
-
It's a human experience.
-
So we've been growing.
-
So far, we've been expanding
one country at a time:
-
Ireland, the UK, Canada --
which we did in French and English.
-
And we could keep growing,
one country at a time.
-
And it would take us decades
-
to reach even just a third
of the people in the world.
-
And that's just not acceptable.
-
We've already seen,
-
since the start of COVID in early March,
-
a 40 percent increase in our volume.
-
Seventy-eight percent of our conversations
-
include words like "freaked out,"
"scared," "panic."
-
People are worried about the COVID virus
-
and so they're nervous about symptoms
-
and they're concerned for family
on the front lines.
-
We're also seeing the impact
of the quarantines themselves.
-
People are away from their routines,
-
perhaps they're quarantined
with abusive people.
-
So we've seen a 48 percent
increase in sexual abuse,
-
and a 74 percent increase
in domestic violence.
-
One of the biggest impacts we've seen
of the virus and the lockdowns
-
is the financial stress.
-
We're seeing more people
reach out with fears of bankruptcy,
-
fears of homelessness
and other financial ruin.
-
And right now,
-
32 percent of our texters
-
identify as coming from household incomes
-
under 20,000 dollars.
-
That's up from our typical
19 percent low income.
-
So we need to grow.
-
Quickly.
-
For months, we were planning on announcing
-
that we were going to expand by language:
-
Five languages in the next five years,
-
covering 32 percent of the globe.
-
And then COVID happened.
-
Things changed.
-
And now five years feels like a luxury.
-
So today, right now,
-
we are committing
to do it in half the time.
-
Five languages in two and a half years.
-
We're going to turn on Spanish everywhere,
-
English everywhere, Portuguese everywhere,
-
French everywhere,
-
and the fifth language?
-
Arabic.
-
So we're going to bring our service
to countries and populations
-
that have limited mental health services
-
and almost no data about what's going on.
-
These include immigrant
populations who have phones.
-
And young people who are often
not counted in studies,
-
but they have phones.
-
So we're going to shift to language,
-
which makes the technology easier,
-
because in addition to text,
-
we're going to be using
WhatsApp and Messenger.
-
And global expansion helps us
with middle-of-the-night capacity,
-
because we'll have time-zone coverage.
-
So think about it,
-
this will be strangers
helping strangers around the world.
-
Like a giant global love machine.
-
And the fact that the TED community
has supported our audacious dream
-
is just deeply, deeply meaningful,
-
to me and to everybody on our team.
-
And the best way
for us to show our gratitude
-
is to just let you know
that we are ready and we are fired up.
-
And we're going to use this support
-
to impact millions of lives
around the world.
-
Times are hard.
-
And it's confusing, and it's depressing,
-
and sometimes, we all feel alone,
especially in isolation.
-
But no matter what age,
-
no matter what your situation is
or where you live,
-
we'll be at your fingertips,
in your pocket.
-
I've been thinking a lot
these last few weeks
-
about that trafficked girl
-
who I connected with.
-
And I hope she's somewhere safe.
-
I don't know ...
-
I don't know how she's quarantined
-
or who she's with,
-
but I hope she's safe.
-
And I don't know last year
how she had our number,
-
or even how she had access
to a phone to reach out to us.
-
I never asked her.
-
Because it didn't matter.
-
What mattered was
that she could contact us,
-
that she did have it,
and we got help to her quickly.
-
And that's the goal,
-
is to make ti easier
for people to get help
-
than avoid getting help.
-
That in moment of hardship,
-
of danger, of physical distance,
-
that nobody is ever alone.
-
That thanks to Crisis Text Line,
-
none of us is ever actually alone.
-
[Support this initiative
at AudaciousProject.org]