New mobile response team launched

HOUGHTON– Crisis and suicide prevention services can now be brought to your school or business.

Dial Help is there 24-7 when a person is experiencing a crisis and needs someone to talk to, simply call their hotline, text or go online.

Now they can bring their crisis counseling services directly to you. Dial Help launched their Mobile Response Team in March to provide on-site crisis support and suicide prevention at schools, businesses, and other agencies.

Dial Help’s Executive Director Rebecca Crane says, “What we’re doing is we are applying that same crisis and suicide prevention model, but we’re going out into the community instead. So a school might call us, or a human service agency, they’ll have someone there that’s in crisis or having thoughts of suicide. They will call Dial Help and then we will send one of our trained specialists out to work with that person one-on-one.”

The new Mobile Response Team also provides resource materials and connects people with other agencies that can help them.

Though they are unable to make house calls at this time, the team has already been dispatched to many other locations.

Crane said, “It would be anybody in a school district. It could be any human service agency. We’ve talked to Department of Health and Human Services. It could be a law enforcement agency. It could even be a local business if they had an employee or someone there that is struggling, they could call us. So, right now, it’s going to be in facilities versus a person’s home.”

The program was funded by a grant from the Portage Health Foundation and serves Houghton, Keweenaw, Baraga, and Ontonagon Counties.

Dial Help’s Mobile Response Team can be requested by calling 482-HELP.