Vibrant Supports the FCC’s Rules to Promote Reliable Access to the 988 Lifeline
Vibrant Emotional Health (Vibrant), one of the nation’s leading mental health organizations for emotional wellness and administrator of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, supports the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) action to formalize a reporting and notification protocol for outages impacting the 988 Lifeline. Notifying of an outage or partial degradation to a network’s performance provides critical insight into system availability. The 988 Lifeline serves thousands of individuals daily, connecting them to a trained crisis counselor via call, chat, or text.
With over 225 crisis contact centers in the 988 Lifeline network across the country and territories that provide crisis interventions, emotional support, and connection to ongoing care resources, timely, consistent access to the 988 Lifeline is of the utmost importance for those experiencing distress and suicidal ideation. This rule and order would require all providers (including originating service providers and covered service providers) experiencing an outage to notify the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and Vibrant within 30 minutes of an outage.
911 and 988 Lifeline are both emergency systems for which the public expects consistent access 24 hours a day, seven days a week. While these services are different in structure, the public expectation and need for situational awareness to provide service are not. Vibrant will continue our work as the 988 Lifeline administrator to ensure that we are helping individuals in need of support and their loved ones to achieve mental and emotional well-being through high-quality services – when, where, and how they need it.
Comments are closed here.