Date of Completion
11-24-2019
Document Type
Campus Access Capstone
Degree Name
Master of Education (MEd)
First Advisor
Carol Ann Sharicz
Abstract
An unavoidable reality of working as a crisis hotline support worker is that some callers will use the hotline for inappropriate purposes, ranging from telling the same story over and over for long periods to shouting profanity and abusive language. Supporting Survivors, a sexual assault crisis hotline, addresses how to respond to these callers in their trainings for new staff, but the trainers find that many staff cannot successfully navigate these calls and, thus, require intervention from their supervisors. Additionally, these callers are frustrating and emotionally draining for staff, which leads to decreased empathy, decreased self-esteem, compassion fatigue, burnout, and attrition. A significant revision to extant training, including an increased emphasis on self-care, and the development of other tracking and assessment tools attempt to close the knowledge gap, provide better emotional support, and, in turn, reduce attrition.
Recommended Citation
Hagee, Amanda L., "Working with Difficult Callers: Empowering Crisis Hotline Support Staff" (2019). Instructional Design Capstones Collection. 56.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/instruction_capstone/56
Comments
Free and open access to this Campus Access Capstone is made available to the UMass Boston community by ScholarWorks at UMass Boston. If you have a UMass Boston campus username and password and would like to download this work from off-campus, click on the "Off-Campus UMass Boston Users" link above.