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The house is old, one of those historic Willow Glen charmers that makes local Realtors sit up and take notice, the kind of house with creaky staircases and mysterious noises—maybe not the best kind of house to be alone in at night, but 24 hours a day, seven days a week, someone is there, waiting by a phone.
That someone is a volunteer for CONTACT Cares of Silicon Valley, a nonprofit organization that since 1970 has been operating several hotlines and taking after-hours calls for dozens of community agencies in the Bay Area.
"We're the hotline of all hotlines," says Executive Director Barbara Joachim.
With such a variety of calls, counselors never know what to expect. On the Warm Line, a young boy home alone might need assurance after hearing a strange noise in his house, while the Jobkeeper Line might take a call from a young mother getting off welfare and reentering the workforce. Parents call the Helping After Neonatal Death Line to talk about the loss of a child, while young women seek out Project Rachel for advice after an abortion.
"It can be daunting," says 16-year-old "Scott," a volunteer counselor. "At the beginning of a call, when you're not sure what that person needs or how you can help them, it's challenging to know you have that responsibility and can't let them down. But as you talk to them the fear dispels."
The Willow Glen Resident is not permitted to disclose the names of the organization's hotline crisis volunteers, which for security reasons must remain confidential.
With only three full-time staff members, CONTACT Cares relies on volunteers like Scott to cover the lines. Though 150 volunteers are on the roster at any given time, an estimated third are teens, which creates an ebb and flow in the staff according to the school year. But Joachim says she wouldn't trade her teen counselors for anything.
"Teens are the greatest source of volunteers today," says Joachim. "They recruit like crazy. They recruit their families and their friends. Sometimes the parents volunteer with them. It's just wonderful. It's a family event. They work shifts together and they learn how to talk to each other better."
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Photograph by Sarah Ruby
Filling a Need: CONTACT Cares of Silicon Valley Executive Director Barbara Joachim has been with the organization for 23 years. She says that by listening and helping those in need the volunteers on the organization's hotlines benefit by developing a greater sense of care for others.
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Learning how to listen and communicate effectively is the top priority in the 40-hour training volunteers must complete before staffing the hotlines. Contrary to popular belief, the counselors aren't trained to "give good advice" but to listen compassionately and guide callers to form their own solutions to their problems. In other words, it's no Dr. Laura show. And most of the counselors find that a compassionate listener is exactly what callers want and need.
"There's a lot of stress in this valley. There's a great need for people to have a place to call, someone to call and connect with," says "Louise," a nurse who's been volunteering on the hotline for 10 years. "I'm shocked at how many people are disconnected from their family or have no friends. I think that's sad, and I'm glad they have this place they can call."
It was seeing that need for connection in modern society that drove Methodist minister Alan Walker to found CONTACT Cares' parent organization 40 years ago in Sydney, Australia.
"Walker saw an epidemic of loneliness and disconnectedness," says Joachim. "Parishioners would call him in the middle of the night in tears and not want it to be known who it was that was calling. So he had an idea: 'Why not have lay paraprofessional volunteers trained in modern psychological techniques answering the phone 24 hours a day for anybody who has a problem?'
"It was the most incredible thing," Joachim says, "because back then there were only suicide hotlines. So if you weren't suicidal, where would you go? His theory was that this would be preventative, that you could deal with a crisis before the person became suicidal. It was to be nonjudgmental, accepting, caring—and confidential."
Confidentiality is still of utmost importance—at Lifeline International, as Walker's organization came to be known—and with its American offshoot, CONTACT USA, a network of hotline centers across the country, of which CONTACT Cares of Silicon Valley is a part. The centers' location is kept a secret, and callers' anonymity is highly protected; even counselors use aliases or just their first names.
"Anonymity is really hard to come by in this society," Joachim says. "I think it's an advantage because people say things to us that they would never say to their family and friends. Or even to their psychologist."
Despite the dozens of calls volunteers field every month, burnout is not a significant problem, according to Joachim. "If they're burned out, they tell us and we support them. We do a lot of counseling among ourselves."
"We can always call each other or staff if we're feeling overwhelmed," Louise says. "Help is only a phone call away."
In fact, many of the volunteers feel that they're getting as much help as they're giving.
"Not every single call, but a lot of the calls the person will thank you and tell you how you've made a difference in their life," says "Diane," 48. "And there's nothing like that, because in our society, you just don't get that kind of feedback."
Joachim explains, "What volunteers find is that their relationships with their family and friends improve because they're finally listening instead of giving out advice. It's so therapeutic. It's so healthy. What you learn here are lifelong skills. It's a lifelong benefit, too, because you're getting out of yourself. Volunteering is one of the healthiest things you can do."
For more information about CONTACT Cares of Silicon Valley, call Barbara Joachim at 408.275.6176 or visit www.contactcares.org.
CONTACT Cares Help Lines
Jobkeeper, 408.297.5437
Support and information referral line for welfare recipients reentering the workforce.
Helping After Neonatal Death (HAND) Hotline, 888.908.4263
Helps parents and their families and healthcare providers cope with the loss of a baby before, during or after birth.
Anti-Hate Hotline, 408.279.0111
A service for listening, reporting and following up on incidences of discrimination and hate crimes.
24-7 Teen Line, 888.247.7717
A health, relationship, crisis and information referral line for teens that connects the caller directly to needed services.
Warm Line, 408.279.0303
Offers support to latchkey children and teenagers and their working parents.
Parental Stress, 408.279.8228
Provides counseling for parents under pressure.
Project Rachel, 800.649.0404
A hotline offering postabortion counseling.
CONTACT Cares also provides after-hours answering services for many community service agencies, including NOW, National Runaway Switchboard and Domestic Violence Victim Advocate.
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Photograph by Sarah Ruby