Hotlines are a telephone service through which people who feel themselves to be in a state of crisis can receive immediate contact with interested and helpful volunteer listeners. Hotlines are a relatively new phenomenon in the field of mental health services. They are representative of a new type of response to the growing realization of the need for innovative approaches to expanding the reach of preventive mental health care services. Hotlines represent one of the ways in which persons without formal training in mental health are being utilized in roles which previously did not exist at all in the mental health field
