Marin County Crisis Text Line

The Marin County Crisis Text Line

By Ryan Barbosa

In May 2021, the County of Marin launched a Marin-specific crisis text line. The purpose of Crisis Text Line is to provide all Marin residents with a free and confidential counseling, with support from trained professionals. With a soft launch, the program was not able to meet the 200 monthly text goal, which would allow the County to have access to a data dashboard with more information about what problems Marin residents are going through

In June 2020, I joined Nancy's dynamic intern team. My peers and I decided to work on a grassroots campaign for the Marin Crisis Text Line because we strongly believed in the importance of the program to all Marin residents. In partnership with MCOE, we have developed a pilot outreach campaign consisting of eight selected high school and middle schools, as well as one local university. We have pilot leads in all those schools working with administrators and counselors to create awareness and sending out survey before and after to determine if campaign was successful.

All pilot schools have a virtual tool kit with presentations for students and staff, social media posts, posters/fliers and more. The pilot schools are: Tam, Mill Valley Middle, Redwood, Branson, San Marin, Novato, San Rafael and Dominican. The pilot will run through the end of the year. MCOE also sent the CTL toolkit to all schools in the County in addition to pilot schools for their use.

We have the goal of reaching out to all residents in the county as a next phase, especially those of 13 to 24 years of age. The Crisis Text Line will be available in Spanish in 2022 and that will be a big important push.

I believe that the Crisis Text Line is a great tool to all citizens, showing and proving that the County of Marin is determined to provide counseling assistance to those struggling with a crisis.