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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 22 2020, @10:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-work-on-fixing-the-causes dept.

FCC Approves 988 as Suicide Prevention, Mental Health Crisis Number:

Yesterday the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unanimously approved [(pdf)] 988 as a nationwide, three-digit phone number that people in crisis can call to speak with suicide prevention and mental health crisis counselors. All phone service providers are required to direct all 988 calls to the existing National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK) by July 16, 2022. This includes all telecommunications carriers and interconnected and one-way Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service providers. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline will remain operational during and after the two-year transition to 988.

During the transition to 988, Americans who need help should continue to contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling 1-800-273-8255 (1-800-273-TALK) and through online chats. Veterans and service members may reach the Veterans Crisis Line by pressing 1 after dialing, chatting online at http://www.veteranscrisisline.net, or texting 838255. A transcript of the vote is posted here.

Activation of new 988 number will take a while. In the meantime, try calling "911" or:

Active and former US service members can:

If nothing else, talk to somebody. It's really important to remember that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary situation. Help is available; ask for it and don't give up.

NOTE: The above are US-centric. For those who are aware of resources in other countries, please mention them in the comments.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2020, @12:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 23 2020, @12:48PM (#1025372)

    I suspect that the Black vote will probably stay home. Biden's policies were disastrous and most of the support he got from Blacks was in states where his only hope of winning is for Trump to continue to forget that he ran on a populist message. There's fairly decent chance that if he remembers that he could still bury Biden. A few well timed stimulus measures and the fact that Biden was an incredibly weak candidate to begin with would do it.