Providing personal teen-to-teen support before problems become a crisis

Teen Line: Teens helping other teens

A toll-free hotline, digital technologies, and community outreach.

Since 1980, volunteers at the Los Angeles-based Teen Line spend every night taking calls, responding to text messages, and replying to emails from tens of thousands of teenagers in need across the country and from around the world each year.

“That can be anything from relationships, stress, anxiety, things relating to depression, child abuse, suicide, grief and loss,” Brandon, a Teen Line volunteer, said. “It’s teens helping other teens. That can really give it a feeling of like, you know, you’re just talking to a friend.”

Brandon, 16, has been a volunteer with Teen Line for two years. He and other qualified teens, some of whom have had their own mental health challenges, go through intensive training to become teen listeners. Brandon said he wanted to get involved and help others after dealing with depression.

“We are trained to provide empathy and validate what they’re going through and just really be there for them and let them know that we’re understanding what they’re feeling and that what they’re feeling isn’t wrong,” he said.

With the idea that teens are more likely to turn to their peers when they’re struggling, Teen Line has de-escalated about 1,000 suicidal teens in the past year alone. While the phone number has remained the same for 42 years (310-855-HOPE), Teen Line has evolved along with technology to include text, email, message boards, social media, and other internet-based ways of communicating.

Each year, Teen Line trains 60 to 80 LA-based teens to be listeners for their peers on the hotline. Each listener is screened and interviewed before going through 65 hours of mandatory training and another six months of observing other Teen Line listeners before taking their first text or call.

“I put them up against some of the best of us licensed mental health professionals,” said Teen Line Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Eskin. A former Teen Line volunteer when she was 14, she is now a licensed marriage and family therapist. “They have the knowledge of what it’s like to be a teen in high school, living through a pandemic and school shootings.”

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Teen Line has not only seen an increase in the number of calls, but also in calls having to do with the issues teens are facing as a result of staying home and not being able to attend school in person.

“We’ve had a huge increase in teens reaching out about child abuse, in particular, teens living in non-safe environments,” Eskin said. “Schools or outside activities are often refuging for a lot of teens.”

Teen Line PSA 2022

Eskin said that for the majority of teens, not being in school has taken away one source of coping as well as connection.

“This is developmentally the time they’re supposed to be with their peers, they’re supposed to be kind of moving away from their parents, moving toward independence,” she said. “But I think loneliness seems to be a big theme, lack of motivation.”

Volunteers like Brandon and the others make sure those who reach out know they’re not alone. He said their job during that first conversation is to guide them through the challenge they’re facing and give them the resources they need to move forward — potentially saving a life in the process.

“It’s really heartwarming to hear that and to hear that what you’re doing is really helping someone who needs it,” Brandon said. “It’s definitely very gratifying.”

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