It’s not often that two organizations’ missions fit perfectly hand-in-hand. Yet, To Write Love on Her Arms speaks right to the heart of what Crisis Text Line wants to accomplish—spreading help and hope.

That’s why our organizations joined forces. Over the last two years, we’ve collaborated to connect with members of our communities who are experiencing anxiety, depression, thoughts of suicide, or any other mental health issue that may seem insurmountable.

So, how do we make the magic happen? One of the main ways we collaborate is through a co-branded text line. Rather than TWLOHA creating their own voice or text line to help the people they reach, they connect people with resources they trust. In this case, that trusted resource is us!  The FIND HELP tool on their website encourages people to text TWLOHA to 741741 24/7 for any issue.

TWLOHA even upped their commitment to their community by helping people connect with mental health services specific to their challenges. The FIND HELP tool also features a bunch of trusted issue-specific resources, such as addiction treatment centers and inspirational stories about overcoming thoughts of suicide, as well as local resources.

We’re good in a crisis. And, we love supporting TWLOHA’s community whenever they are in crisis. We may be biased, but one of the coolest parts of our partnership is the juicy data insights we’re able to glean from anonymized messages. Once TWLOHA (or any keyword partner reaches a texter conversation threshold that allows we’re then able to share back anonymized and aggregated information to TWLOHA about how their text line is being used. This includes how many people are texting in, what time of the day and day of the week they’re in crisis, and the broad topics they’re in crisis about.

Through TWLOHA’s partnership with Crisis Text Line, we’ve been able to help 4,000 texters in over 14.2k conversations over the past two years. Crisis Text Line has performed 106 active rescues and 250 suicide deescalations for TWLOHA texters. And, this is one we’re super proud of: 48% of TWLOHA texters tell a Crisis Counselor something they’ve never told anyone else before.

Sure, gathering this data is interesting. It’s proof of concept that we’re better together and we can help more people when we join hands and pool our best resources. Even cooler: data insights can radically change the game when it comes to showing up for and supporting a community. Using these insights, TWLOHA has been able to identify when their community needs them the most.

Together, we’re not just letting people know that help is out there, but showing them right where to find it. We’re reaching out to people in pain and literally putting help in the palm of their hands.

Interested in our co-branded text line partnerships? Email me at jfrench@crisistextline.org.