Crisis Hotline - History

History

Such services began in 1953, when Chad Varah, an English vicar, founded The Samaritans service, which soon established branches throughout the United Kingdom. The first Samaritans branch in the United States was established in Boston in 1974. In addition to Boston, there are currently Samaritan branches in Falmouth (serving the Cape Cod and Islands area), the Merrimack Valley, the Fall River/New Bedford area. Outside of Massachusetts, there are branches in New York City, Providence, Hartford, Albany, and Keene, New Hampshire.

In the United States, the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center was founded in 1958 and was the first in the country to provide a 24-hour suicide prevention crisis line and use community volunteers in providing hotline service. San Francisco Suicide Prevention started a hotline "Call Bruce" in 1962. A similar service, Lifeline, was established in Australia in 1963. A totally volunteer-run crisis hotline, Samaritans Tasmania, originally called Launceston Lifelink, then Lifelink Samaritans was established in Tasmania in 1968 by concerned citizens of Launceston, Tasmania who decided to create a phone service based on the principles of The Samaritans. The rationale was that people often become suicidal because they cannot discuss with family and friends their emotional pain. This service provides emotional support 24 hours a day to callers from all over the state of Tasmania and does not have any religious affiliations. The organisation is a member of Befrienders Worldwide and has a "twinning" relationship with Northampton Samaritans in the UK. Samaritans Tasmania is the oldest telephone befriending service in Tasmania and the fourth oldest in Australia and it receives at least 5000 calls a year.