Trump Administration eliminated the national 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u2019s \u201cpress 3\u201d option,<\/a> which previously connected LGBTQ+ youth with specially trained counselors. <\/p>\nAt the time, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which funds the 988 hotline, said it would not \u201csilo LGB+ youth services\u201d but rather focus on serving all who are seeking help.<\/p>\n
Losing the \u201cpress 3\u201d option has been devastating for youth struggling with mental health crises, emotional stress and suicidal ideation, said Janice Hahn, L.A. County\u2019s District 4 supervisor whose coverage area spans Rancho Palos Verdes, Lakewood, Vernon and Whittier. <\/p>\n
Hahn and District 3 Supervisor Lindsey Horvath led an effort to evaluate the impact of losing \u201cpress 3\u201d and discovered that more than 14% of the 5.1 million 988 callers elected to use this option in the last year before the service was terminated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just a policy change \u2014 it was a message to LGBTQ+ young people that their needs didn\u2019t matter,\u201d Hahn said. \u201cBut L.A. County will not turn its back on our LGBTQ+ young people. Not now, not ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to direct the county\u2019s Department of Mental Health to try to develop a local \u201cpress 3\u201d pilot program.<\/p>\n
Establishing a local program requires approval from the federal agency that eliminated the service with a formal request coming from the California Health and Human Services Agency, according to a county report. <\/p>\n
If approved, Vibrant \u2014 the company that administers the 988 phone tree that routes callers to specialized subnetworks like the \u201cpress 3\u201d option for LGBTQ+ trained counselors \u2014 would then restore the \u201cpress 3\u201d option for L.A. County callers. <\/p>\n
The county would have to then identify and fund one or more contracted crisis intervention service providers to supply the LGBTQ+ focused crisis service. <\/p>\n
In the long term, the county has also supported adding a \u201cpress 3\u201d option for the entire state of California through active and future legislation. <\/p>\n
Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) introduced in September the 988 LGBTQ+ Youth Access Act<\/a> which would require the Department of Health and Human Services to maintain specialized services for LGBTQ+ youth and reserve no less than 9% of 988 Lifeline funds each year to sustain and strengthen those services. The legislation is being reviewed by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five months after the Trump administration shuttered a suicide and crisis hotline for LGBTQ+ youth, Los Angeles County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49377,49378,166,49376,6246,4579,5948,8161,48,52,51,49375,47,50,49,29286,16714,10159,4747,1695],"class_list":["post-88601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california-health","tag-counselor","tag-county","tag-crisis-hotline","tag-department","tag-district","tag-janice-hahn","tag-l-a-county","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lgbtq-youth","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mental-health-crisis","tag-option","tag-press","tag-service","tag-trump-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}