The importance of volunteers in the provision of mental health crisis intervention services has been well documented. However, the volunteer turn-over rate is quite high, due to factors such as burnout. This study examined stressfulness in relationship to caller problems, as well as variables related to perceptions of stress. In this study…

This manual represents a state-of-the-art summary of approaches in child sexual abuse interventions, emphasizing interdisciplinary cooperation between professionals in successful case management. Although prepared specifically for the use of professionals in Region II of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services and containing a service…

A study analyzed the use of third-party credibility as a deliberate and systematic public relations strategy to regain credibility for an organization faced with public hostility. Four types of third-party usage are: citizen participation, outside investigation, adversarial advocacy, and employee dissemination. Third-party credibility as a public…

This report is an evaluation of the Youth Crisis Center program run by the Wichita, Kansas Children's Service League to provide crisis counseling services to status offenders. Two major objective of the program were to reduce the number of adjudicated status offenders in Sedgwick County, Kansas; and to reduce placement of such youth in locked…

Hotlines, or telephone crisis-lines, begun in the 1960s and currently numbering in the hundreds provide assistance to callers in crisis, frequently around the clock. Crisis-line communication can be seen as a form of mediated therapeutic communication premised on the existence of a crisis and the medium of the telephone which shapes the…

Attributions affect coping with victimization. Battered women who blame their husbands' moods are less likely to leave than are women who blame their husbands' permanent characteristics for the violence. Abused women often have repeated contacts with crisis intervention workers and the attitudes of those workers may affect the attributions made by…

This document presents a program for training volunteers to assist individuals and families who are going through a crisis related to terminal illness and death. The training is described as being both didactic and experiential. A discussion of the didactic portion of the program includes descriptions of: (1) the stages of preparatory grief as…

Described are the services offered by helplines, an innovation in the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect modeled after the crisis intervention hotlines. It is explained that child abuse and neglect helplines have two primary functions: to provide the parent or child caller with a sympathetic, nonjudgemental listener; and to offer…

This paper presents an overview of problems confronting crime victims, identifies service approaches to assist crime victims, and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of providing victim advocate services as part of comprehensive crisis intervention centers. Victims not only may bear the suffering of financial loss and emotional trauma as a…

The shift in mental health delivery systems from a centralized to a decentralized community-based system requires quality service standards from both a professional and a service implementation viewpoint. The present paper sets forth the basic and preliminary structure for standards for crisis outreach services. Definitions are presented which…

This booklet, written in response to requests from throughout the nation about how a rape crisis center can be started, presents the history of the founding of the Washington, D.C. center. The booklet offers sections dealing with specific issues. A section discusses, for the rape victim, pros and cons of working with the police, together with the…

In order to respond efficiently to what was thought to be a growing problem on the campus of Bradley University, a comprehensive survey of drug use and desire for help was administered to a sample of 371 students (about 10% of the student body). Approximately one-third reported some drug use, with alcohol and marijuana the two most widely used…

Poetry therapy is becoming a recognized psychotherapeutic modality in the healing program of a number of institutions, evidenced by the fact that there are presently over four hundred staffed and salaried poetry therapists. Contained in this book are the following essays on the healing power of poetry: "Poetry in a Cage: Therapy in a Correctional…

It was proposed that existing therapeutic procedures may influence attributions about emotional states. Therefore an attributional analysis of crisis intervention, a model of community-based, short-term consultation, was presented. This analysis suggested that crisis intervention provides attributionally-relevant information about both the source…

An attempt to establish a self-help network based on shared peer-counseling for families of dying children in a Midwest teaching hospital is described and evaluated. Structure of the group meeting is delineated in terms of environment, didactic presentations, and practices of peer-counseling. (Author)