Shadee Elmasry – Issues You Can’t Talk to Family About Call Us.
AI: Summary ©
A representative from a nonprofit organization called a potential customer to ask about their experience with mental health and depression. They are looking for people who have experienced mental health issues and want help. The organization is a hotline for mental health counseling programs and training programs for coaches. They discuss their mental health training programs and use of anonymized call centers, as well as their plans to roll out web therapy in the US and Canada.
AI: Summary ©
This organization is called in the sea. Hmm. And let's bring him on
from based in Canada. It's a hotline if a child if a youth is
suicidal, and we ask Allah offense, and I'm from that, but I
found this was an excellent organization. It's a nonprofit
organization. Brother, I'll see you. Does that clock in for coming
on?
Welcome to the live stream. Why don't you tell us right away? What
is the organization? What was the impetus to the organization to the
point of it all is CD, what we're finding the majority of the calls
we get, especially with what's going now what's going on now,
overseas in the Middle East, we get a lot of calls, people are
sad, they're depressed, they're dismayed. They don't know what to
do. And what we find is the best thing for anybody is to be able to
talk to somebody. And unfortunately, there's so much
stigma in our community around mental health around depression,
as you stated, you know, it's, it's it's frowned upon to even say
that you're feeling sad or depressed. Why are you sad? Why
are you depressed, do do some liquor, and you'll be okay.
Unfortunately, not everybody to your point, has had that
background has had that training. Not everybody has a sheriff or a
teacher that they can sit with and talk to. So this helpline, which
is toll free, confidential, it's non judgmental, is for people to
pick up the phone and call and you know, it's not just young people.
We're getting calls from adults. It's interesting, what one of the
directors told me, it was very, it was a very sad and emotional
story. He said, he recalled receiving a gift in the mail, it
was a handwritten letter with a small desk be from somebody in
Palestine, who wrote them a letter and said, I've been using your
service. And it's helped me to get through some very trying times.
That was about two years ago, we don't know where that person is,
or what's happened to them. So this is the condition of the
community, and they just need somebody to talk to you. So we've
set up this helpline, and, you know, it's interesting. So we have
the helpline, we were getting calls, we get about three 400
calls a month, and then the pandemic happened. Everybody's at
home.
What do you think happened to the number of calls we'll take? Over
the roof? No, the calls dropped? Oh, really? Support? They got
their family support? No, it's because your privacy, you're
sitting in the room with everybody else? How are you going to pick up
the phone and call somebody and say, Hey, I'm feeling depressed.
So we started, we started to text line. And our text numbers went
through the roof.
You know, once or twice a month, I get stories back where we've,
we've actually prevented a suicide by text. So it's an important
service. And really, you know, I just wanted the opportunity to
come on here. And just let your audience know that
not everybody is as lucky as you to have somebody like Dr. Shadi to
talk to, and bounce these ideas off of them. If you or somebody
you know is struggling, it's dealing with these problems. Pick
up the phone, call the CEO, it's really simple. 1866 Naseeha, you
can call or you can text and and secondly, because we are now
expanding into the US. We need help. We need volunteers if you're
interested in helping. You know, I know the New Jersey community, I
grew up in the New Jersey community. I know people want to
roll up their sleeves and help. This is this is really, really
important task. Class people need our help. Yeah, what are the
qualifications of someone who wants to help?
So we are starting to look for people now who are in the field or
are studying in the field of mental health or medicine to come
on as counselors. We do have a training program that we put them
through all of our counselors, by the way, see the our their peer
counsellors, so they're young adults, answering the phone, and
then we have clinicians on staff. In addition to counseling, though,
you know, we want to do programs in New Jersey, like the one we did
at MCMC. You know, we want to bring in guys like machmood and
other people to talk about their struggles with mental health. And
for that we need boots on the ground. Right? We need people in
New Jersey to say, hey, yeah, you know, come to NBC. Let's run a
basketball camp. And then let's have a discussion. We've started
working with the Molson center in Chicago. We're gonna start working
with the Molson center in Chicago. We want to do healing circles.
It's like a study circle, but you come to the circle, bring your
parents and just have a discussion in a safe space about what you're
going through what you're feeling. And
so you receive the calls, do you follow up and does that person
who connects with them the first point of contact, call them back
every two days? Or is it just a one way street? Yeah. So what we
do is that are the names are anonymized on the call center.
What we don't want is callers that are coming in to then become
dependent on somebody's an individual as their support line.
So our counselors are trained primarily to listen, and to
assess. And if it's seemed that somebody is in a situation where
they may harm themselves or others, then take the appropriate
action, we do allow repeat callers to come in. But if we find the
calls are coming in, we do try to point them or direct them to
another source for long term care. Now in Canada, interestingly, we
started web therapy, we're actually offering free web therapy
in Canada. And now in the US, we're looking at the different
states to see how we can do that. Because, you know, clinical
therapy is expensive, especially if you don't have insurance. So
that is a program that we're looking to roll out in the US in
the new year and shout loud, but
yeah, it's mostly it's just active listening and making sure that the
person who's calling is safe, and then directing them somewhere
where they can get help. Can people text? Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely. Almost almost half our calls are coming through text 1866
nasiha. Is that for Canada only, or the US? Its global. Its global.
That's we're getting people from all over the world.
You don't cover addiction therapy has nothing to do with this,
right? Someone called I'm depressed because I'm an addict. I
can't stop doing this. Do you cover that to? Anything? Anything?
Any type of? Yeah, so almost half of our calls, I think 39% of our
calls that come in, have to deal with some type of an addiction,
whether it's drugs, alcohol, and unfortunately, the big one these
days is looking at things you're not supposed to look at, on the
screens. That's a that's a big one. And we do have, we have
people that are actually trying to provide these types of therapies.
You have my good friend, Dr. Ray hands ad on, I think last month or
a couple of months, you look like his cousin.
I don't know who's the lucky one in that example.
So Rehan actually is doing this very same thing with individuals
like he, you know, he's bought a place and he's providing this type
of personal therapy. So I think there's enough to do that. Many,
many people get get can get involved, and we will still need
more help in this area.