Thousands calling 988 lifeline in Illinois

ILLINOIS, (WAND)- Memorial Behavioral Health has seen its call volume almost quadruple since shifting from being a hub for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline, to the new 988 lifeline.

The 988 lifeline launched in mid-July as a mental health hotline offering targeted services to those in need.

"I want hopefully people to feel like they can be open and honest and talk without any judgment," Tayla Stone, a crisis counselor at Memorial Behavioral Health told WAND News.

Stone said in just a few weeks, counselors have already been saving lives. She recounts her call with a young woman who called earlier this month, feeling overwhelmed and hopeless.

"I was able to kind of walk through those low moments in her life that led her to that point and helping her, at the end of that conversation, really look back on those moments and find those points of strength for her- the ways she was able to make it out of those moments," Stone explained.

Memorial Behavioral Health is one of six hubs in Illinois, fielding hundreds of calls to the new 988 lifeline.

"It has increased tremendously. Through our first two weeks of taking the 988 lifeline calls, they have doubled for us," Amanda Riva, the Crisis and Call Center Supervisor for Memorial Behavioral Health, told WAND News.

In the first month operational, the Illinois Department of Human Services said Memorial was only able to answer about 46% of calls coming in.

"We now have a dedicated call center. Those individuals just started in that role full time in the middle of August," Diana Knaebe, President of Memorial Behavioral Health, explained.

Since then, almost all calls are answered in Springfield instead of rolling over to the dispatch hub in Bloomington.

"We have answered over 96% of the calls that have come through," Riva added.

Because calls are now answered locally, Memorial is able to deploy its Mobile Crisis Response Team if someone needs immediate help.

"We believe that they would benefit from having one of our mental health counselors going out and seeing them actually in the community, wherever they're located, we can actually dispatch our team and they'll go out and take care of that," Knaebe said.

988 also has a text and chat feature with counselors available to respond within seconds.

You can read the entire breakdown of call data for all six Illinois hubs below.