Distress Line: What We Do

  • Provide a confidential help-line service available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to persons experiencing emotional distress
  • Ensure that all residents of our rapidly changing, culturally diverse city are aware of our services
  • Select and train volunteers to carry out the services of Distress Centres
  • Develop new programs as needed
  • Collaborate with and assisting the growth of complementary organizations
  • Provide consultation, education and training to develop a deeper understanding in the community of the issues faced by our service users

Crisis Response

  • Provide immediate access to emotional support from the safety and security of the closest telephone
  • Offer emotional support, crisis intervention, suicide prevention and linkage to emergency help when necessary
  • Provide active rescue for high-risk callers
  • 60% of our calls are taken after-hours when other services are unavailable, providing backup for many health and social services programs
  • Train lay volunteer responders with the support of professional staff respond to the wide variety of callers
  • Provide a variety of access routes including chat/text through ONTX, a 175-interpretur service and TTY access