Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Well, hello there and welcome back to another episode of Just say Something podcast. Be sure to like share and subscribe.
And remember that you can find us anywhere that you find your other favorite podcast there we will be.
So we have a guest with us today. We've had his organization on here before, but Chris is new, so. Chris Hale, thank you and welcome.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: And Chris is here with Mental Health America Greenville County. Always end that by AKA988 because I'd be willing to say most everybody has no idea that Mental Health America Greenville county equals 988 or runs 988.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: That is probably true. It is my mission to change that.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Okay, all right, cool. So while we're talking about it, give me and our listeners a little bit about your background and how you ended up here in Greenville in your current role at Greenville Health America Greenville County.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Well, I'll cut the how we wound up here in Greenville short. And in that I let my partner, she chose where we moved this time. She's been following me for the last 14 years.
[00:01:28] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: I used to work in aerospace management consulting. Engineering and a lot of work with the people. I enjoyed working with the people more than I necessarily enjoyed working with the hardware.
So that kind of led me into this path into my undergrad in psychology and ultimately I'm in grad school for clinical mental health counseling.
And some things along the way that happened in my family, with my family led me to the, to start volunteering with a 988 hotline.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: To get involved in suicide and crisis prevention.
And once I started, I found out that somebody had a position open for outreach coordinator. And I've been doing that. You know, part of my, part of my job throughout all of that consulting was instructing public speaking outreach. I worked with the Brevard County Health Department in Florida for several years on their mass profile access programs and things like that. So working with people and engaging people and talking to people has always been underlying of everything that I did.
So this outreach position and going to, you know what you started the conversation with at mhagc, not a lot of people know that we administer the 988 line in the upstate of South Carolina.
And it surprised me when I found that out. It surprised me that how many people didn't know about 988 in general?
[00:02:58] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: A lot of people still know about the 10 digit number that used to exist three years ago and still can, you still can call that number.
But how many people didn't know that 988 was there and that, that it was an option and in times of crisis. So I was really drawn to that.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I know with the Power Collective, which is our opioid work funded by South Carolina Opioid Recovery Fund, that I thought 988 was a huge piece or needed to be a big piece of that.
And so that's where when we print like the 1500 bags that we gave away, they all had the 988 logo on there because I just. It's so important to our community and they don't know about it.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: So that's, that's always issue.
But I think, and I heard Jennifer and I probably knew this at one time, but in South Carolina if your school district provides you with an ID card, 988 is printed on the back.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: That's correct. On every, every kid in, in the state of South Carolina who has a school sponsored identification has 988. That doesn't necessarily mean they know what it is.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Right, right. It's up to us to educate them about that.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. It's. And, and just say something.
The Power Collective, everything that you know that goes along with it is a Natural partner for 988.
While it is the suicide and crisis prevention line.
The crisis part is as, as important as the suicide part because suicide is a crisis. But there are a plethora of other crises that people go through.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: So every partner that we've talked to, from just say something to any of our rehabs, to any of our churches, any of our schools, it's a natural connection for 988 because we are there just to listen. Like there is, there is no limit to the things we talk to, to talk about on the line.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: So it's just, it's just a natural partnership in, in every aspect. You name an organization and I can find a way or a reason why 98 should be there for you.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Right, right. And so as we look at that and you've been with Mental Health America, Greenville county, for how long?
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Nine months now.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Nine months.
So in your travels and are you just in Greenville or are you through the upstate or.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: So I am through the Upstate, through the SCORE Fund. There are I think five counties physically that, that we cover and then the whole state virtually. Because 988 is a, not only South Carolina, but is a national hotline.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: So you can call from anywhere. So that's kind of the word is or kind of the job is to get the word out that, that is for everywhere.
But we administer the line in the upstate, and there's another call center in Charleston that's administered essentially for the. For the low state.
But they roll. So, you know, if they, if they don't answer for whatever reason or if we don't answer, someone else will get that call.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: Okay, so in your nine months that you've been here and you've. I've seen you at a lot of community events. You're out and about what are.
Have you heard or from feedback from those that you engage with, some of the issues that maybe some of our community members are facing but don't really want to talk about.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: So the great thing is it's. They're not afraid to talk about it.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: We.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: We get throw one out. We've heard it. So they have. Like I said, every crisis is on the table. But the one thing that we're really trying and that we focus on is resources, access. Access is the. Is the issue.
I can't find a therapist. I can't get a hold of a therapist. I don't know where to go. I don't know who to call.
And that's, that's when we get that call. And that's our job is to answer that call and to try and find those resources, try and find a different thought process for them.
So I think probably the, the biggest rub is access.
Where do I go for a counselor? And whether that be a counselor being available or they've been to counseling before and it didn't work and they don't want to try it again, or they've, they've had some kind of negative response to it.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Our whole mission through that is to talk them through that, bring them to the other side of that and hopefully get them to go back and consider it again, try something else.
Just because it didn't work once doesn't mean it won't ever work.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: And just like, if you go to a medical doctor, you may not like that one and you go to another one that you do like, you get a rapport with and you're able to be more open and to talk with them, you're certainly going to have a lot better therapy sessions that way than if you don't have a connection to your therapist.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Yeah, without a doubt. And it's, it's good that you mentioned the medical part of it because it's mental health. It's mental health and there's the stigma of mental health.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: There's a. I don't want to tell anybody Or I've tried and it didn't work. And you know, we, we, you know, we always try to bring in friends, family, you know, religious organizations, anyone that we can, that someone might want to talk to.
And we get a little bit of pushback on that and that, you know, they don't want anybody to know, they don't want anybody to know that they're struggling with these things.
And one of the things that we like to remind people is that, you know, we say mental health as much as, as anything and it's, it's same as with, with gut health or with physical health or with muscular health.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: It's health.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Yeah. If your stomach hurts, you say something to somebody, you know, if you have a migraine. And this, I use this quite a lot in my training is, you know, everyone likes to tell people around them when they have a migraine.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:07] Speaker B: Like, it's almost like a badge of honor. I have a migraine, I need to do something about it.
But we won't do that if we have mental health. If we're struggling with mental health and we're trying to break that stigma and we're trying to make people realize that it's just, it's just a thing that's happening with you and, you know, you can go get help and we will help you go get help. You know, so we use that medical analogy a lot.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Okay, all right, so I know to.
So the people on the phone, are they, are they paid staff and some volunteers?
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Okay, what type of training do they go through before you sit them down to say, all right, start answering those calls?
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't just let them, let them on, just pick up the phone.
No, it's, it's extensive. We go through extensive training. We go through extensive hands on classroom training where they're reading, they're, they're studying, they're doing role plays, they're practicing all these skills that they have to use on the lines before they actually get to go on the lines. And then even when they go on the lines, they're listening, they're doing listen ins. And that could last, that could last weeks, it could last months, depending on, depending on, depending on the person's skill set. And then they do listen tos. So I've listened to somebody, I'm on the phones listening to them, taking down the information, looking at the resources they're providing, the whole nine yards, the whole interaction. And then we'll put them on the phone with the trainer listening to them. And again, that could go for weeks. It depends on, again, their skill set, how fast they pick it up and how comfortable they are.
We do get people, we come in that, you know, they're ready to go, and then they get on the phones and then they, you know, we all want to help, right? Everyone wants to help. And we all do it in different ways, right?
But the, the lines are for listening. We're not there to solve problems. We're there to help. We're there to listen. We're there to give them an ear.
I like to say that we're an empty vessel. Like, come to us, dump all your problems here. That's what we do.
So we have to train our. We train our people to, to, to do that, to be there, to be empathetic and to be listening.
And, you know, it's a varying amount of time. But all of our people, once they get on the loans and lines and once they're solo, they're. They're trained and they're ready to go. And we're all trained the same. No one gets any extra special training or anything like that. So whoever you get on the phone when you call in, they're there for. To do the same as everybody else.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: Okay, So I know, and you mentioned this earlier, but I want to bring it back up because a lot of people think, think that it's only for suicide, and they don't consider other things that they're going through to be a crisis.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Like, I can't pay my rent for that family. That's a crisis.
I don't have food for that family. That's a crisis. Do y' all also help with those kind of phone calls?
[00:12:12] Speaker B: We take those phone calls all the.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Time.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: Because it is a crisis, and those are legit crisis. But we have crises where my boyfriend broke up with me, my girlfriend broke up with me, you name it. And they are crises.
So we get this question all the time from the people on the lines and just from people out in town.
Can I call if it's not a suicide? And I remind them it is suicide in crisis. And the reason we. The reason it's there most likely is because we're trying to remove the stigma of suicide. Like, if you are having suicidal thoughts, call 988. But if you are going through a crisis, if you're upset, uncontrollable crying Sometimes, call 988. We're still going to. We're still going to be there. We're going to listen.
We didn't put crisis first because it would then look like we're trying to hide suicide behind crises.
Right. We're trying to get the word out that suicide is not something to be ashamed of. Having suicidal thoughts is not something to be ashamed of.
I'm sorry, I'm pounding on the table. I feel very, very passionate about this.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: That's great.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: That suicide is not something to be put on the back burner. Right.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Because it's a life.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: People think about it.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: An individual.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And people think about it. People have thoughts of suicide. And there's nothing wrong with that.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: Suicide is not the problem.
Suicide is the answer that people come up to come up with for a problem that they can't solve. And our job is to try and give you other options for that Answer, a different answer.
I know your question was about crises, and the answer is yes, crises of all sorts.
We're still going to handle the question the same way or the call the same way.
We're still going to assess. You still going to check. There's things that, because it's a suicide and crisis line that we will do. We will still assess for suicidal tendencies and self harm and harm to others.
But we're there for all the other stuff as well.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Okay. All right. So we know there's the. The 988 piece is one of the services of Mental Health America, Greenville County.
Tell us some of the other services or are things that you all do in the community.
Do you do support groups? Do you know, do you do outside?
I don't want to call it a program because I don't know that you'll consider it a program.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: So we do have programs.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: And thank you for asking, because While MHAGC does 988 a lot, we do a lot of other things as well.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Right, Right.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: We might do 988 more than anything because it is a 247 operation, but we do these other things as well that are 24, seven operations. We have a housing program. So we have three. We have three facilities in the. In the upstate. Across the upstate where we house independent housing for chronically mental people suffering chronic mental health issues.
And they go through the mental health clinics to get those. To get those positions.
So we, we monitor the facilities. We're basically landlords for the facilities. And then we help the people. Help the people live. It is independent living.
So they have their own rooms and they take care of their own stuff. They take care of their own food and everything. But we're there for them if they, you know, struggling with, you know, getting transportation or you Know, wherever they need, whatever they need to do to live independently. So that's a housing program. Three, three facilities across the state.
We also have a representative payee program.
So again, people suffering with chronic mental health issues, those unhoused, those just with issues where they maybe can't take care of themselves. Themselves.
Representative payee program is where their checks and their money comes through our payee system and then we issue that money to them through their caseworkers.
And we have over 200 people in these programs the state. And again, that goes through the, through the mental health system. We have caseworkers that, that work through them to get us signed into their system.
They come to us for. We pay their bills or we, we don't necessarily pay their bills, but we give them the money to pay their bills.
Sometimes we give them money for other, other necessities they need, furniture, clothing, things like that.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: But it's really just to, to help guide them and make sure that the money that they get, it lasts them.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Because, I mean, what it should go to.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, some of, some of the people are living on less than a thousand dollars a month.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: So making sure that money goes in the right places.
We don't tell them necessarily they can or can't, but if it's, you know, if it starts to lean towards frivolous and things like that, we work with their caseworkers and make sure that it doesn't get wasted.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Right, Right.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: We also have a program called the Opera Operation Santa Claus where we collect hygiene goods and clothing, all new unwrapped hygiene goods and clothing items for our residents. And as well as the mental health clinics and the unhoused across the upstate. Over 400 gifts we gave out last year. So we do that around Christmas time.
Just a little gift so that they know someone's there, someone cares for them.
And we do donations through that and we're taking donations now. So if you're interested in donating, please reach out.
We'd love to have, you know, as much as we can. We'd love to increase that. I mean, 400 drop in the bucket.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: Say that's knowing the problem like I do. That's nothing.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Right, Right. And there are.
I don't want to make it sound like anybody else doesn't do anything. There are plenty of other organizations that are doing something we're doing all small part, and, and we would love to be able to do more. So if you're interested in helping with that, please reach out.
And you asked about programs and you asked about groups. We do have a survivors of suicide loss group that meets twice a month and it's peer run, so it's not counselors, it's just survivors getting together and you know, live life, lived life experiences, talking about how, you know, how they got through or what they're going through now. And just a chance to be in a room with somebody who understands.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Physically understands what you're going through.
And then the last program that's dear to me right now is the QPR Question, Persuade, Refer.
It's a one hour training where we teach people to speak about suicide, to ask the question. Because that's the hardest thing that you'll find is to ask someone, are you having thoughts about suicide?
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:18:54] Speaker B: So what that class does is it's a one hour training and it just teaches you some of the signs of somebody who might be going through something that might be that trigger to say, hey, I need to ask this question. I need to touch bases and see it's free. Again, reach out.
Contact me. Civic groups, religious groups, church groups, whatever it is.
If I can, if I can get you on the schedule, I'll get you on the schedule and we'll get that done.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: All right, so you've, you've said quite a few times. Just reach out. How can people get in touch with you?
[00:19:26] Speaker B: Well, they can email me directly. Um, I think we probably make it pop up on the screen. I don't know how well it works.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: I'm not that fancy.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: But it's chris.hale mhagc.org or you can just reach out to the Mental Health America of Greenville county website. We do have an outreach link on there.
But the quickest way to get that going again is to email me at chris.mail mhagc.org and your hail is H.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: A L E, right? That's correct. Okay.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: C h r I s.h a l E. All right.
[00:19:58] Speaker A: One thing I just thought about with 988, it's not just a phone call. People can text, right?
[00:20:05] Speaker B: That's right. They can text, they can chat. And the difference between text and chat is you can text from your phone and you can chat from your computer.
So 989-88-sc.org you can text or you can chat. I'm sorry, that's the website. So if you go to 988sc.org you'll be able to chat.
Just text 9 at 8. Just, just the three numbers.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: And then what happens?
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Someone will respond. Okay, you'll get a, you'll get some. So they'll, there'll be some questions in the same way on the phone. There's some questions that'll come up.
Veterans questions, you know, if you, if you need to speak Spanish, that's another option.
I don't think that's available on the text. I have to double check that.
And same with, with the, with the chat. There's a couple questions.
Some of them are, are you in immediate need? Things like that.
We do not want to supplant 91 1. If you are in immediate health need, immediate medical need. 911 first, we do have people call us 988 and tell us their, you know, palpitations or things like that. And so we will refer them to 911 if they can call 91 1.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Okay. All right.
So as we're bringing this to a close, is there one thing you haven't said yet that you would like for our listeners to know about mental health America, Greenville County 988.
[00:21:38] Speaker B: Again, just the stigma part.
There's no shame in it. There's no judgment when you call.
We're there for every possible reason.
It is a, it is a tagline and no judgment, just help. But, but we mean it.
There's nothing wrong with reaching out for help, right? There's, there's no reason to not reach out for help. 988 is a national line that they're 247 doesn't cost anything.
Doesn't cost you anything.
So, yeah, if, if, if in doubt, I guess if in doubt, that'd be a great tagline for us. If in doubt.
[00:22:15] Speaker A: 988 or when in doubt, reach out.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: 988 all right, you better lock that one down.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: You know, there's just like with substance abuse, mental health has that same stigma of it won't happen to us or not in my family or we would never.
Da da da da da da da. Chances are there's not a listener out there. There's not a community out there that everybody doesn't know at least someone, some one person that has been touched by either or, or both from mental health and substance abuse.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that's correct. I, I mean, the, the statistics say, you know, one in five, one in five adults.
So I mean, that's. Everybody knows five people, right?
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:11] Speaker B: Everybody knows 10 people.
[00:23:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Another statistic is that suicide touches six people directly.
Every time someone, every time someone dies by suicide, six people are directly touched by suicide.
So when you're talking that, you know, there's a suicide roughly every 11 minutes, there's a Lot of people being touched by suicide. Just so to think that it's not me or it's not going to get to us.
I'm sorry, the stats just don't support that.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: And 988 is an option and the more people that know that, the better chance we have a turning that, turn that number down.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: So one last thing because. And it just came to me, on average, how many calls do does Mental Health America Greenville county receive on average?
[00:24:06] Speaker B: So I don't have the monthly or weekly or daily averages, but I can tell you From June of 2024 to July of 2025, there were over 49,000 calls placed in the state of South Carolina to 988. And let me grab my numbers here, we were able to answer 42, over 42,000 of them.
So of the over 49,000, we got over 42. And in July or actually in June of this year, we broke the 90% mark. We answered 90% of the calls that came in in June of 2025.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: So when they pick up the phone to dial 988, the phone system takes them through and routes them based on their zip code or based on their.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: Based on their geographic location for the major carriers. Okay, I won't say the major carriers because we're not getting paid for that.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: But if you are on a major carrier, it's going to go based on where you are. It used to be based on your area code solely. So if you took your phone, your 864 number and were in Arizona for instance, and you dialed 988, it's going to route you back to South Carolina.
But now if you're on a major carrier, wherever you are, it's going to route you to a 90 day call center that's close to where you are.
For the smaller services, it's still, it's hit or miss because they haven't all got brought up yet. They don't have the funding for that obviously.
But the only reason you won't get a call center that's in your geographic location is if we're on the phones and it rolls over. So you might, if you're calling from Greenville, you realistically could get routed to Charleston.
Charleston is more capable of helping you than if you got routed to Arizona. Right, but you could realistically get routed to Arizona if it's a really busy day. I would maybe realistic isn't the right word. It's possible that you can get route to Arizona, but what they will try to do is route you back to somewhere in your area code where you are, and we can do that.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: All right. Wonderful. Well, Chris, thank you.
[00:26:09] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:26:09] Speaker A: I appreciate you being here.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: I appreciate you doing what you do, too.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Well, thank you.
Both of us work for great organizations and have great teams.
And so I'm excited about you joining the team at Mental Health America, Greenville County. I can't throw out the initials quick like you can, but I appreciate your time. I appreciate your passion for what you're doing and want to thank you for being with us today.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: All right. Thank you. And that will wrap up another session of Just say Something podcast. Remember to, like, share and subscribe, and we will see you next week. Until then, be safe.
