How well do you think? I’m not talking about your intelligence—I’m asking about how you use it. Are you getting the most out of it? How can you tell?

We need to honor darkness and sit with grief before the night fires of our winter traditions can warm us.

Here’s what happens when you call a suicide hotline. It’s not what you might think.

Sometimes all we can do with pain is to witness it, to honor the struggle and stay present. This applies to callers—and to us.

The word “just” is perilous for good communication because it’s so often a stalking horse for disrespecting and minimizing others’ experiences.

How to participate in social media for the 2014 NASCOD/CUSA crisis hotline directors’ conference. Official schedule, hashtags, guidelines.

Why do we expect people to know why they’re feeling depressed?

Quick-start guide for understanding Twitter, using it for work, and participating in professional networking chats in real time.

Quick-start guide for setting up Twitter for professional networking and edchats.

Listening is more than just leaving space for the other person to talk.

Five simple questions you should answer before trying to help others.

I use thumbs-up, thumbs-down, and thumb-sideways signals when checking in with students. It gives me fast, confidential, no-tech formative assessment.

Ever wondered how people get hospitalized for suicidal or homicidal thoughts in NY? Give me ten minutes and I’ll explain it to you. (video + infographic)

Listening is about taking in, about receiving another person’s story. Advising is about putting forth, about dispensing your own thoughts.

I’ve spent the last 10 years working in suicide prevention. Here are my thoughts on what we’re doing well, and what we should spend the next 10 years doing.

People with lived experience need to be respected and heard. Here’s a framework for how to listen respectfully and learn from their lived experience.

Suicide prevention rests on a foundation of community support. Let’s make sure we don’t accidentally alienate our allies in talking about Robin Williams.

Sharing videos and images of suicide is dangerous. Let’s talk about why, and talk about what we can do instead to prevent harm and promote healing.

A meditation on how and why we change, what holds us back, and what we can do about it.

How to ask friends and family about suicide and feel more comfortable starting the conversation. You can do this.

It’s not useful to say “suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem”. Here’s why, and here’s what to say instead.

Brief guide to talking about suicide and Robin Williams so we prevent harm to other vulnerable people.

Many traditions talk about approaching your work with focus and care. Here’s why preparing is important and how to do it well for any kind of work.

This is a glossary and usage guide for talking about suicide. We use a lot of specialized terms in the suicide prevention field, and I want to make sure you know what we’re talking about.

Quick guidelines for how to get through an ice storm safely.

Early results from the total overhaul of Reachout’s training program in 2013. Check out how things look!

What can we learn about crisis work from the Little Prince and a retired counselor from Mississippi? We can learn how compassion and love connect in crisis.

Pathologizing Language Most of you have seen the video about the Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger, with narration by Randall, somewhere in your travels around the internet. I delight in using the honey badgers to teach about crisis hotlines; we’re using the honey badger in our initial training to talk about inappropriate sexual callers, frequent callers, the ...

Fears in a Hat: A Facilitator’s Guide by Hollis Easter, (c) October 2013 Fears In A Hat is a good introductory team-building and group process exercise that gets people focused on good listening, encourages them to share vulnerability and build trust, promotes empathy for callers, and starts the process of forming groups and high-performing teams. It takes ...

Good customer service involves helping people to talk about feelings, not just facts, before solving problems. Here’s how and why to do it.

Curated reading list of resources for people who direct crisis hotlines, call centers, and crisis programs.

Getting Their Best Performance improvement at crisis centers Workshop by Hollis Easter National Association of Crisis Center Directors annual conference Rochester NY, 2013 October 19 PowerPoint slides PDF of PowerPoint slides: NASCOD2013-GettingTheirBest Links Finding the perfect balance: how much multimedia is best? https://www.holliseaster.com/talks/2010/MMBalance/ Involuntary hospitalization: www.reachouthotline.org/assets/invol/ Strength in numbers: https://www.holliseaster.com/talks/2010/AIRS/ Workshop objectives Participants will learn: How to look at performance problems, assess gaps, find causes, and ...

(I’m in Rochester, NY for the annual conference of the National Association of Crisis Center Directors and Contact USA, and I often draw or make lists during workshops, which often helps me dispense with the distraction of whatever thought has arisen, letting me get back to the workshop’s content.) This thought came to me today: What’s ...

When people postpone grief, it’s like shoving all the pain into a Grief Closet and pledging to deal with it later. Postpone it too long and trouble starts.

The Pillar Metaphor is a lens for seeing resilience and strain in crisis work. In the crisis hotline world, we often see people struggling but don’t understand why, and we often forget the ways that chronic conditions and life events sap a person’s strength to the point where even small problems can knock them down. ...