Lifeline Shanghai Reaches Out
By Lystia Putranto
As inhabitants of Shanghai, a bustling city with an estimated population of 23 million, finding ourselves alone at any given time is a rarity. Yet ironically, for expats who are living away from their home and support network, feelings of isolation and loneliness are not uncommon.
Susan Hine, former medical attaché of the American Consulate, understood these feelings all too well and was concerned about the lack of access to mental health resources in this city. She, along with a group of expat professionals, started Lifeline Shanghai in March 2004 to provide expats with somewhere to turn to for emotional support, from 10am to 10pm, 365 days a year.
Since then, Lifeline Shanghai‘s helpline has served the city’s international community as a free, confidential and anonymous emotional support service as well as an information resource. Sarah M Lowe, LLS’ outreach manager says, “A friendly listening ear can help enormously. No matter what you are going through, it’s often reassuring to share thoughts and feelings with another human being. It’s quite comforting to know that you’re not alone.”
Lifeline Shanghai is affiliated with Lifeline International, based in Australia, and part of a network that exists in 22 countries. What is unique about Lifeline Shanghai is unlike its counterparts that primarily focus on suicide prevention, LLS handles just about any types of calls. “Counselling calls are the bulk of our calls; people can call on just about anything. One can pick up the phone and call us whether they are going through a crisis or when they simply wanted to vent because they are having a bad day,” Lowe added. Additionally, callers are able to request information abut mental health or physical health referrals or information through the helpline.
According to Lowe, there is no such thing as a typical call at LLS since they do vary greatly but insisted that all calls are handled in strict confidence. The helpline is manned by LLS’ trained volunteers who have gone through comprehensive training to handle different types of calls. She noted that for counselling calls, there are usually no scripts; LLS encourages their volunteers to be fully present and attentive to each call but in certain calls such as crisis calls, Lowe added that LLS has protocols that volunteers adhere to.
Additionally, Lowe explains “serious calls can be overwhelming to deal with, so when our volunteers received difficult calls, our counselling supervisors, who are mental health professionals, provide them with the necessary support.” Since LLS respect the anonymity and confidentiality of calls, volunteers are not able to consult their friends and family about it. As a result, LLS encourages volunteers to also be there for each other. “We’d like to think of each other as family,” Lowe says.
The age, nationalities and background of callers are as diverse as the calls – fortunately, so are LLS’ volunteers. “We operate primarily in English, but upon requests, we are also able to offer support in many other major languages. Many of our volunteers are bi-, tri-, or multilingual. Everyone on the helpline must speak English fluently, however we currently do not offer support in Mandarin,” Lowe says.
The helpline is not the only service that the organization offers. LLS also does community outreach as well as the Youth Link program, which caters to Shanghai’s international schools. “We provide workshops and or presentations on teen related topics such as bullying, drugs and alcohol etc. We mainly work with students but have also worked with parents and teachers as well as the schools’ administration staff,” Lowe says.
With Youth Link, LLS goes into schools to discuss the type of workshops needed and provides professional speakers to present. They hope that by offering a medium for discussions on teen sensitive topics, students will feel comfortable enough to reach out for help when they are going through tough issues, rather than resorting to negative outlets.
Author’s bio:
Lystia Putranto is the VP Marketing and Memberships and one of the founding members of BEAN – Shanghai, a community outreach organization that hosts volunteer and community-building events every week to help busy professionals get involved in helping others around them. To learn more, check out http://shanghai.beanonline.org.
