988 Call Center Counselor

Location: East Providence, RI

The 988 Crisis Call Center at BH Link is hiring professionals who are looking to make a positive impact on the lives of Rhode Island community members! The 988 Call Center is a crisis answering service that responds to calls, chats, and texts from individuals experiencing mental health and/or substance use crises.

This call center is connected to the BH Link – The state’s walk-in behavioral health crisis center that serves Rhode Islanders statewide. As such, 988 Crisis Counselors can assist service recipients in facilitating entry to BH Link, to be seen in person by an experienced clinical team that provides comprehensive assessment and referral services. The 988 Crisis Call Center also coordinates with local mobile crisis response teams, dispatching available mobile crisis clinicians to the community in order to meet people where they are. The services provided emphasize client-centered care in the least restrictive possible settings.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Working on site at the 988 Call Center in East Providence.
• Answering calls, chats, and texts coming into the 988 Crisis Call Center, both through the 988 Lifeline and the 414-LINK line.
• Engaging callers with empathy and professionalism to effectively establish clinical rapport in a brief period.
• Routinely assessing for risk of suicidality (and other risks to safety) with callers experiencing mental health and/or substance use crises.
• Identifying best outcomes, including the coordination of wellness checks and/or the dispatch of mobile crisis response teams.
• Providing callers with resource and referral options as applicable.
• Completing all required documentation and data collection in a timely fashion.
• Coordinating directly with members of the BH Link clinical team as appropriate.
• Coordinating with 911 dispatch and local municipalities as appropriate.
• Documenting incident reports as necessary – notifying call center supervisors in the case of any critical incident.
• Attending required staff meetings and trainings.

Desired Skills:

• The ability to answer crisis calls, chats, and texts with empathy and composure.
• The capability of multitasking and transitioning between periods of low and high call/chat/text volume.
• Utilize supervision and take feedback in order to continually grow and improve as a crisis counselor.
• Strong communication skills that will lead to effective coordination of care both within and outside of the 988 Call Center.
• The ability to effectively navigate digital platforms (the 988-answering platform, resource databases, electronic health records, etc.).
• Multilingual staff are highly encouraged to apply.

 Qualifications:

• Minimum high school equivalency required.
• 1-3 Years in the human services industry preferred.
• Fluency in multiple languages preferred.

About Us

Community Care Alliance provides an array of services and supports that are linked together so people can access help for their unique situations. Our goal is to help all members of our community become healthier, more self-reliant and better informed to meet their economic, social and emotional challenges.

Community Care Alliance is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or disability.

Military friendly employer!