|
Abstract
|
Maximum efficiency in providing crisis services requires close collaboration between health professionals in crisis centers located outside of medical facilities. Such collaboration may be required before, during and after the episode for which services are needed, and necessitates communication with a variety of disciplines related to medicine.
To date there has been limited progress in developing such integration of services, apparently due to reluctance on the part of medical persons, especially physicians, to accept volunteers in the role of collaborators. To the extent that this reluctance restricts the range or adequacy of assistance provided, a disservice is done, and overall therapeutic efforts are handicapped. Since delivery of health care is moving steadily in the direction of a broader range of services to an ever greater segment of the population, this handicap threatens to become greater as manpower shortages increase.
Collaboration of telephone crisis services with medical agencies would be made easier by perceiving the role of the person taking crisis calls not as a "volunteer" but as a "mental health counselor". Such a role transition would obviously require more than simply changing the occupational label. To have meaning it would be necessary to institute a program of training that provides thorough orientation in all major aspects of mental health. This program would require the equivalent of 9-12 months of full-time training, and would cover a broad range of material from the physiology of the nervous system to the legal and administrative aspects of community mental health services. It would also imply that appropriate pay be provided for services rendered...
Keywords: Suicide prevention
Language: en |