The Future of Volunteers in Crisis Hotline Work

Background: Crisis hotlines play an important part in suicide prevention by providing a service where individuals contemplating suicide can be immediately, and confidentially, connected with a caring person trained in crisis intervention. Historically, the caring people staffing crisis hotlines were community volunteers. The past decade has been characterized by the professionalization of crisis hotline work, which has led to the development of best practices and enabled hotlines to increase their effectiveness in serving their communities. At the same time, the number of crisis hotlines staffed by paid phone workers has increased while the number of volunteer-staffed crisis hotlines has declined. Objective: The goal of this study is to describe a sample of crisis hotlines that use volunteers, to assess the strengths and limitations of using volunteers in crisis hotline work, and to determine where these programs are most in need of support. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with hotline staff to explore the experience of staffing a hotline with volunteers. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The transcript data was analyzed using a general inductive approach. Results: Eight people were interviewed and six summary categories emerged from the interview data: Hotline Administration, Professionalization, Training, Supporting Volunteers, Maintaining a Volunteer Corps, and Volunteer Performance. Conclusions: In order to stay viable, crisis hotlines need to leverage their assets, including phone services and training programs, to generate funds and/or engage in strategic collaborations. Providing sufficient support for volunteers, including onsite supervision, and promoting a culture of connectedness will enable hotlines to cultivate a robust volunteer corps. Public Health Significance: Suicide is a complex public health problem that accounts for more than 35,000 deaths in the United States annually and affects countless others who have lost a loved one to suicide or who have attempted suicide themselves. Community volunteers who serve on crisis hotlines play an important role in suicide prevention by conducting interventions on the hotline and also acting as “ambassadors for suicide prevention” out in the community when they are not working on the hotline

A comparison study of process drama and actor training

This study hypothesizes that process drama can enhance the acting skills of undergraduate acting students. Not only is process drama effective in teaching acting skills in general; it is adaptable to teaching those particular skills required by alternative forms such as epic theatre. Process drama is an episodic form of improvisation that is initiated through the given circumstances of a pre-text and develops over an extended period of time. The quantitative pretest-posttest procedure of this study involved dividing a class of beginning acting students into two groups: traditional and experimental. The learning objectives remained the same for both groups; the only variation was in the teaching techniques. Students were pretested by the primary investigator at the beginning of the semester, to establish a base-line in the six assessed skill categories: speech, physicalization, listening, concentration, clarity of action and energy. At the end of the study, two external evaluators participated in the posttest to ensure reliability and validity of the results. The results showed in that in four of the six categories (physicalization, clarity, concentration and listening), skills were improved in the experimental group, to a significantly greater extent than in the traditional group. In one category (energy) the results were about even; had the study group been larger, the experimental group would have shown significantly more improvement. In the sixth category (speech), it was the traditional group that showed more improvement. The results indicate that the potential is great and deserves further exploration and development. Of particular importance is the need for case studies which can assist acting teachers in formulating their own approach to using process drama in the classroom

Over The Edge: What Should We Do When Alcohol and Drug Use Become a Problem to Society?

The purpose of this issue guide is to help people talk together about what we should do when alcohol and drug use becomes a problem to society. It begins with an overview of substance use and abuse in the United States and the impact this has on individuals, families, and communities. It then offers three options for addressing the issue, along with potential actions that could be taken. These are starting points for the conversation, which may lead to other insights and possibilities.People from seven organizations across the country participated in developing the guide, conducting interviews, surveys, and conversations with diverse people in their communities to capture different views on the issue. The organizations included the Community College of Baltimore County, San Diego Deliberation Network, Tennessee State University, University of Alaska Anchorage, Walden University, SUNY Broome Community College, and the West Virginia Center for Civic Life.The guide may be used to support a single conversation or a series of conversations. The following suggestions can help you get started:Invite participants to share how substance use and abuse has affected them, their families, and others they know. Many will have direct experiences and are likely to mention concerns identified in the guide.Consider each option one at a time, using the actions and drawbacks as examples to illustrate what each option entails.Review the conversation as a group, and identify areas of common ground as well as disagreement. Talk about possible next steps, individually and as a group

Globalización, desmodernización y el retorno de los monstruos

O principal objetivo deste ensaio é refletir sobre como o processo de globalização é interpretado e representado por distintos imaginários, tais como : públicos, oficiais, vernaculares e pelas zonas de exclusão.The main focus of this essay is to discuss about the globalization process and how it's interpreted and represented by diferents imaginaries, such as publics, officials, vernaculars and the exclusions zones

A Survey of School Health Advisory Councils in North Carolina

Research as shown that healthy students are more successful academically; therefore, school systems have a stake in doing whatever is possible to increase their chances of having a healthy student population. Initially, school health programs were begun to stop the spread of communicable disease and to focus on health conditions brought on by poverty and malnutrition of immigrants. While these issues continue to be a part of school health programs, today the major threats to the health of school children are the result of lifestyle choices and high risk behaviors. Schools need to partner with parents, teachers, healthcare providers, community leaders, and the students themselves to create and maintain a healthy school community. Rather than fragmented, piecemeal solutions, efforts to improve the health of the school community need to be coordinated and include all relevant stakeholders. Recent federal and state legislation has mandated the development of School Health Advisory Councils (SHACs) to oversee Coordinated School Health Programs in each school district by the start of the 2006-05-2007 school year. A survey of school districts in North Carolina demonstrates that, although most have begun the process, there are significant disparities among existing School Health Advisory Councils. Areas of future study might include comparisons of SHAC development in urban vs. rural districts, poor vs. affluent districts, and the impact of the school nurse to student ratio on SHAC effectiveness.Master of Public Healt

Rebellious Apprentice Devours Maestros: Is It Hunger or Vengeance?

1 online resource (PDF, page 264-282

Chlorophyllin chemoprevention against Dibenzo[a,l]pyrene-initiated multi-organ carcinogenesis in the rainbow trout model

Chlorophyllin (CHL), a water-soluble derivative of the green plant pigment, chlorophyll, is an effective antimutagen and anticarcinogen in various model systems when used as a modulator against a class of carcinogens that, in general, have a structure consisting of at least three fused rings. Dibenzo[a,l]pyrene (DBP), an extremely potent environmental carcinogen, has been isolated from urban air samples, tobacco smoke, and coal smoke condensate. A study was conducted to evaluate the complex interrelationships among dietary DBP doses with co-exposure to a range of CHL doses. In order to achieve adequate statistical power in the generation of multiple dose-response curves, this dose-dose matrix experiment utilized over 12,000 rainbow trout. The resulting DNA adducts were assessed and evaluated as biomarkers of exposure to discern their relationship with the final tumor outcome. CHL was highly effective in reducing DBP-initiated DNA adduct formation in the liver and stomach and strongly inhibited tumor formation in the liver (56-79% inhibition), stomach (30-68%), and swim bladder (over 80% at the highest DBP dose). Molecular dosimetry revealed adduct formation to be predictive of final tumor response in both organs regardless of CHL dose. Other parameters evaluated were consistent with CHL-mediated protection. A clinical CHL preparation, evaluated in a human population subsequent to the seminal demonstration of CHL chemopreventive properties against AFB₁ in trout (1), revealed CHL to be just as effective in reducing biomarkers of alfatoxin exposure to humans (2). Dietary administration of this clinical preparation along with DBP in the rainbow trout demonstrated CHL protective capacity against DBP-initiated multi-organ DNA adduct formation and final tumor incidence. Sucrose was evaluated, deemed unlikely to be sequestered in a complex with CHL, and was used as a control in a pharmacokinetic study evaluating the biodistribution of DBP with and without CHL. The results provide evidence against a non-specific masking mechanism for CHL-mediated blocking of DBP (or aflatoxin)-initiated tumorigenesis. CHL at multiple doses provided significant protection against multi-dose DBP-initiated DNA adduction and tumor formation in multiple organs. CHL-mediated protection, primarily by reduced carcinogen biouptake and consistent with a complexation mechanism, is supported by these results