169. Dr. Shairi Turner on the Teen Mental Health Epidemic & How Crisis Text Line Can Help
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Today's guest is Dr. Shairi Turner, the Chief Health Officer of Crisis Text Line-- a global nonprofit organization providing free and confidential text-based mental health support and crisis intervention. Dr. Turner is a Stanford Alum, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine graduate and Harvard-trained internist and pediatrician with a Master of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. As Chief Health Officer, she leads the organization’s external policy, advocacy and partnership initiatives related to mental health. Dr. Turner truly understands the impact of trauma and has an extensive resume that includes over a decade of advocacy on juvenile justice, public health, disproportionate minority confinement, trauma histories of incarcerated women and the neurobiology of trauma. Prior to Crisis Text Line, Dr. Turner was the first Chief Medical Director of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, served as Deputy Secretary for Health and Director of the Office of Minority Health for the Florida Department of Health, served as a faculty consultant for the National Center for Trauma Informed Care, and most recently was Project Co-Lead for the US Office of Women’s Health-funded Trauma Informed Medicine eCase.
In this episode, we discuss her earlier career experiences working with minority public health policy and juvenile justice, adverse childhood experiences and how those can impact teen mental health, the current teen mental health epidemic and its causes, trends in teen mental health based on Crisis Text Line’s research on millions of teens, how Crisis Text Line works and how it has been able to help so many teens and college students, and what she’d like to see change in the next few years with mental health resources.
Crisis Text Line's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crisistextline/
Mentioned In The Episode…
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About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)
After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.
a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!
Sadie: Welcome to She Persisted. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton, a 19 year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of Penn. She Persisted is the Teen Mental Health Podcast made for teenagers by a teen. In each episode, I'll bring you authentic, accessible, and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness.
Sadie: You can expect evidence-based, teen approved resources, coping skills, including lots of D B T insights and education in. Each piece of content you consume, she persisted, Offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle, while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.
Sadie: So let's dive in this week on She persisted.
Dr. Turner: the larger takeaway for me was what one of the facility directors said to me, in passing, if you could treat hopelessness, it would go a long way for these kids.
Dr. Turner: And what he was saying back then was. Before we had the words and we're using the words was trauma, and these kids were growing up in highly traumatic and chaotic homes, and they were losing hope,
Sadie: hello, hello, and welcome back to She Persisted. I am so excited you're here today because we are talking about Crisis Text Line. If you're a high school student and if you are a teen, I'm sure you have heard of it before.
Sadie: or because they've done an incredible job making this resource really accessible and something that teens are widely aware of. But if you haven't heard of Crisis Text Sign, it is a crisis text resource that is available 24 7. All you have to do is text HOME to 741 741.
Sadie: You are connected with a trained crisis counselor and they offer support on so many things, whether it is a grade that you got on a test, an argument you're having with your parents, maybe it's depression, maybe it's anxiety. They are there to listen and offer support and create space for what you're experiencing.
Sadie: And again, 7 someone is there to listen and offer advice and support and be there for you. So I'm a huge fan of Crisis Text Line. I remember In high school when I was really like lowest of low about to go to treatment I always had crisis text line in my phone programmed. There is a resource. I had their little Business cards taped in my bullet journals like if something is going on if you need support, this is who you text This is what you do and I cannot Speak highly enough of the work they're doing they are one of the greatest resources out there when it comes to teen mental health So I'm so excited to have dr.
Sadie: Shirey Turner on the podcast today. She is the chief health officer for crisis text line She has an incredible background. She is a Stanford alum case Western Reserve University School of Medicine graduate a Harvard trained internist and pediatrician with a master's in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health. At Crisis Text Line, she leads the organization's external policy, advocacy, and partnership initiatives related to mental health, and she has a very interesting background, which we get into. So she understands the impact of trauma. She's done a ton of work that includes over a decade of advocacy on juvenile justice, public health, disproportionate minority confinement, trauma histories of incarcerated women, and neurobiology of traumas.
Sadie: We talk about trauma, we talk about those experiences. She was also the first Chief Medical Director of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and served as the Deputy Secretary for Health and was the Director of the Office of Minority Health. the Florida Department of Health, and she served as a faculty consultant for the National Center for Trauma and Informed Care, and was recently the project co lead of the U.
Sadie: S. Office of Women's Health funded Trauma Informed Medicine eCase. Incredible history, incredible background, so much knowledge, and I'm really excited for you guys to hear this conversation because we talk about the teen mental health crisis. We talk about what Crisis Text Line is doing to support teens.
Sadie: We talk about the trends they're seeing. What teens are struggling with, what they're asking for help with, all of those kinds of things. We talk about what their upcoming advocacy and initiatives are and also how you can support those. And so this was just an honor to do this partnership with Crisis Text Line and share this incredible resource with all of you.
Sadie: This has been a dream for years at this point, and I'm really excited for this two part series. This episode will be with Dr. Shari Turner, as I mentioned, and next week we are talking to a crisis text counselor about what to expect when you text in. We'll go over a couple of different common situations, give you some advice, give you some support on how you can navigate those things, and also share how you can volunteer and get involved if that is of interest.
Sadie: So, incredible episode, incredible conversation, all of the information on crisis text sign will be in the show notes. So with that, let's dive in.
Sadie: . I am so excited to have you on She Persisted today to talk all about your work and Crisis Text Line. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you
Dr. Turner: for having me, Sadie. It's it's a pleasure to be here, and it's always inspiring to be with younger people as they're living into their purpose.
Sadie: Aww, I appreciate that. Well, can we start with going over your background and the work that you have done in the mental health space up until you worked with Crisis Text Line because you have such an interesting career and you've touched on so many different areas of teen mental health and trauma and crisis care.
Sadie: So talk to me about your background and how you got to where you
Dr. Turner: are today. Yes, life is a journey. So I am Dr. Shiree Turner. I'm the chief health officer at Crisis Text Line and thank you again for, for hosting me. I am an internist and pediatrician by training with a background in trauma and public health.
Dr. Turner: I currently lead the public policy and advocacy team here at Crisis Text Line and I'm a wife, I'm a sister, I'm a mother, two young adults. And a survivor of suicide loss. So I began my career really wanting to help people in a primary care setting. So I had planned to be an internist and a pediatrician really helping adults and children to navigate their healthcare needs.
Dr. Turner: Then during my residency, my internship year, I lost a very close family friend to suicide and he was incarcerated at the time and I had visited him in prison multiple times and looking back it, it really was kind of a classic cycle, his family with trauma abuse and neglect and some family dysfunction.
Dr. Turner: And it was a moment in my life that really set a trajectory. But at the time I didn't know, you know, what, what was going to happen, how that was going to impact my career. So after I finished my residency, that was four years, I decided that where the healthcare system was at the time was not for me.
Dr. Turner: So it was the early 2000s and insurance was just sort of getting into the mix and physicians really were not able to see their patients for any extended period of time. They were double booking, there wasn't enough support for physicians. So I kind of stepped back and took a look at like what other options were out there and became very interested in public health.
Dr. Turner: So I. Applied for and was accepted to what was then called the Commonwealth Fund Harvard University fellowship in minority health policy. And that was really for physicians and dentists who were interested in learning more of the opportunities that existed for us especially in the public health arena.
Dr. Turner: So we spent a full year traveling the country and seeing all of the ways that physicians. Led at the public health level and how it impacted and how we could address health disparities and how we could address the health of minority populations because that was a big focus. We then during that year had to do a practicum where we worked with an agency and I, based on my experience with my, my family friend.
Dr. Turner: chose the Department of Youth Services, which was the Department of Juvenile Justice in the state of Massachusetts and worked with them just looking at some of their research and data and the policies that pertained to minority adolescents who were using substances. And it was very interesting because I found that, you know, white and Latinx.
Dr. Turner: Youth who were incarcerated were more apt to use alcohol and ecstasy and black youth were more apt to use marijuana. But the, the larger takeaway for me was what one of the facility directors said to me, just sort of in passing, but he said, you know, if you could treat hopelessness, it would go a long way for these kids.
Dr. Turner: And what he was saying back then was. You know, before we had the words and we're using the words was trauma, and these kids were growing up in highly traumatic and chaotic homes, and they were losing hope, right? And, and they were treating that with substances, you know, they were using substances to really kind of numb their experiences.
Dr. Turner: So after the fellowship fast forward a bit, I well, after, right after the fellowship, I did another two years really looking more at incarcerated populations and then had the opportunity to move to Florida and become the first chief medical director for the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.
Dr. Turner: And you know, it was, it was an opportunity to have impact on these kids again, who had been through so much. Florida was at the time one of the largest incarcerators of Children and adults. And most of those kids were black and brown Children and teenagers. So I, you know, thought I was just sort of signing on for two years and wound up staying for four years and really helped the department begin its initiatives around trauma.
Dr. Turner: We, we learned, from the National Center on Trauma Informed Care, they came and really gave a moving presentation about, you know, what trauma was, the prevalence and how it tied directly to These youth in juvenile justice settings to adults who have been incarcerated to basically anyone that served people, psychiatric facilities included.
Dr. Turner: And it lit a spark for me just sort of knowing my own, you know, personal. Friendship and experience there. To start to, to really try to embed an understanding of trauma informed practices and trauma informed care in the juvenile justice setting. And it meant helping people learn about adverse childhood experiences and And really kind of shifting the mindset away from being punitive to understanding that, like, what has happened to these kids really play such a large role in their in their choices and their behavior and their use of substances.
Dr. Turner: I then moved over to the Florida Department of Health, spent two years there as the Deputy Secretary for Health. During that time, we were able to... have Florida recognized as one of the states that, that acknowledged and acted upon child maltreatment as a public health issue. So it was another way to kind of look at trauma and child maltreatment and chronic health conditions.
Dr. Turner: So I felt like I was impactful there as well. Then at that point my own two children were in elementary school and I decided that I was going to step down from kind of the pace of of state government. You know, high level state government work. And I did some more contracted services and trainings with the National Center for Trauma Informed Care.
Dr. Turner: And we traveled around the country really starting to educate people about the impact of trauma. And it was just very meaningful to see kind of the aha moments. that, that different people in different organizations had when they started to understand how our childhood experiences truly impact, you know, the course and the direction of our lives.
Dr. Turner: So then in 2017 was when I joined Crisis Text Line..
Sadie: One thing that you mentioned in there before we even dive into the teen mental health crisis is adverse childhood experiences, which is such a fascinating concept and study and also something that's so important to be aware of when we talk about teen mental health because a lot of these things do start to emerge in the teen years and then continue on to adulthood.
Sadie: For listeners that haven't heard of ACE scores or adverse childhood experiences, what is that and how does that relate to trauma and teen mental health and everything that you just mentioned? Yes.
Dr. Turner: So that's great that you're asking. It's so foundational because we now know there was a study done in the mid to late 90s by Kaiser Permanente and the CDC that showed, just created a, a very clear connection between patients at Kaiser who had experiences of what we now call adverse childhood experiences, but such as physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, neglect parental mental illness, parental incarceration, divorce or death of parents.
Dr. Turner: So all things that really fell into the broad category of. Abuse, neglect and family dysfunction. And we know that at the age of, you know, zero to our early twenties, our brains are developing. And when we have Children who grow up in households with trauma, it affects their brain development. It affects and leads to we can show, you know, now directly the correlation between these adverse childhood experiences and sort of the layering effect because many individuals experience more than one.
Dr. Turner: So it, you know, when there's a household that's been impacted by trauma and the cycle of trauma, you know, you'll have neglect, you'll have physical abuse, you'll have all of these things. But what the, the study showed was like, as you layer up, as an individual's adverse childhood experience score gets higher and higher, as do the risks of.
Dr. Turner: All of the mental health issues, depression, anxiety, suicide, self harm, teen pregnancy, and then as well the chronic physical conditions. So, as you can imagine when someone's trying to treat themselves or treat their trauma with cigarettes, alcohol substances, opioids, et cetera that has an impact on the body.
Dr. Turner: So you see liver disease, you see lung disease, but you also see things like heart disease, where it just tells us that trauma causes an inflammation, like a body becomes fully inflamed when someone is constantly stressed. And that's when we talk about like toxic stress.
Sadie: Yeah, I think that's such helpful context to have when we talk about just mental health in general, but especially teen mental health because, like you mentioned, different ways people might be coping ineffectively or self medicating or trying to navigate these experiences.
Sadie: A lot of the times it shows up in these different mental health challenges because they haven't had a lifetime of experience. of how to navigate these things, or extensive education, and I'm like, these are healthy coping skills, and this is how we deal with this. So, I think it's really important to be aware of when we talk about teen mental health because, as I'm sure everyone listening knows, we are in a huge teen mental health crisis.
Sadie: We hear the data all the time that teens are struggling with. more than they have ever before. And I think there's also the flip side to that coin is that we're talking about mental health more than ever. We are talking about our experiences, we're sharing resources, we're sharing what we've experienced in therapy or conversations we're having and all of that.
Sadie: And so It's really important to normalize and unpack that teens are experiencing distress and I'm sure that also in some ways helps and kind of prevents that shift from mental health challenges to mental illnesses and lifelong mental illnesses if you get that support and ask for help and all of that.
Sadie: But I would love to get your thoughts. On the mental health challenge, kind of having seen this space and this demographic for years at this point, and then also seeing it evolve with time and navigating COVID and then now working with Crisis Textile, which we'll get into, which really does a lot to work with teens and offer support to that demographic.
Dr. Turner: Yeah. So great questions. We know, yes, like you said, we are in a youth mental health epidemic. Especially for our youth of color who are seeing rates of suicide that are twice that of their white peers. We know that teens are struggling, right? And I, and I love what you said because we are talking about it more.
Dr. Turner: We're creating a space for normalizing it. And as we're doing that, We're also listening and we're hearing from teens, like the depth of their pain and the depth of their struggles. And we're, we don't have a full handle on why this is happening. Right. And, and I think when we say teens categorically, it's such a broad, right?
Dr. Turner: You have, you know, you have teens who are in rural communities, you have indigenous teens. You have. White teens in the city, you have black teens in a city and each of their experiences can be so different. But we do know, you know, from some of the insights that we've gathered at crisis text line is people are, teens are struggling with their academic pressures.
Dr. Turner: They're struggling with bullying, with, Loneliness post COVID, right? I think we're ultimately going to look back and say that that period of isolation, may be seen as a trauma for kids during that, that really important, those really important developmental years where they're just Cut off from their peers.
Dr. Turner: We can talk about social media, right? Like there's, there's the, the, the negative side, the constant influx of all things through social media. But then we also talk about, you know, social media is something that connects. But I think the, the ability to have access to all the things that are going on in our world, which we know, you know, between around Climate change and just the wars throughout the world.
Dr. Turner: It's a lot. Right? And teens have to be able to modulate what's coming in, right? Because it affects the brain and it, it, it does a lot. Cause, anxiety, depression, sadness, loneliness, you
Sadie: mentioned a couple of trends there that you guys are seeing from the teenage demographic with loneliness and academic pressures.
Sadie: For people that don't know, Crisis Text Line contributes a lot of research based on different trends in different areas and what times people are looking for support while of course protecting everyone's individual privacy and information and all of that. But I think it's. one of the greatest, like, active pieces of data collection about what teens are navigating and what they want support with and what they want help with.
Sadie: What are some other trends that you are seeing, even ones that have emerged more recently? And even if you can speak to, like, as you navigate, those preteen years and you're going from middle school to high school and then navigating college, like, what are these different trends that you're seeing within the space?
Dr. Turner: Right. So we know that 45 percent of our texters are under the age of 18. And some of the, the big issues for them are what I identified relationships, loneliness, bullying. And, and our data is very real time. So where we had. 1. 3 million conversations last year, we were able to say, you know, this is what's affecting our youth, right?
Dr. Turner: They are dealing with so much eating disorders, for example. , we provide a unique platform because there are digital natives, you know, teens are are, we know that 88 percent of teens have access to a phone and are using text and they're finding that text is helpful in dealing with their problems.
Dr. Turner: So we know that our BIPOC teens, right, are dealing with issues of suicide or talking about suicide and self harm at rates that are greater than their white counterparts.
Dr. Turner: And over half of our crisis text line even in fact, our volunteers are Gen Z, right? So it's teens helping teens. And over 30 percent are millennials. And two thirds of our texters, like I said, are under the age of 24. So, really, the, issues that they reach out to us for are what I identified.
Dr. Turner: Really, relationships isolation, loneliness. Eating disorders anxiety, and it's, you can think about, you know, all the things that are going on in the In the world today, teens are reflecting that back to us when they, you know, they answer a survey at the end of their conversation and, many of them or 87 percent of our texters find the conversations helpful and many of them are sharing things with us that they wouldn't share with anyone else.
Dr. Turner: So, where teens are not finding that resource necessarily at home or with their teachers or friends, they can turn to Crisis Text Line because it's confidential, because it's anonymous, because it's easily accessible because you can be anywhere. Everyone's texting all the time. No one needs to know that you are.
Dr. Turner: Having a crisis and we always say a crisis to you is a crisis to us, which means that teens can text in about anything. It can be homework to, you know, sadly being on the brink of suicide and our volunteers are trained. We've trained over 65, 000 volunteers who are trained to handle those conversations and Listen actively and empathetically.
Dr. Turner: So we're ready to support teens in their moment of need.
Sadie: Yeah, it's so incredible and so accessible as well. I think that's such a unique part of Crisis Text Line is that even though it can be like an emotional and anxiety barrier to get on a hotline and call and talk about what you're going through, but to make it so similar to what most teens are already doing, which is texting their friends and Complaining about what's going on or venting and all that.
Sadie: I think it's just such, such an amazing aspect of it. You mentioned a couple of trends and I'm wondering what you'd like to see shift in the next five to ten years and even beyond with mental health and education and resources. You mentioned that there's really high rate of mental health challenges in the BIPOC community. And so I'm sure one area that I've heard from a lot of individuals looking for therapy and looking for support is they want more BIPOC therapists and counselors in the space and more representation there.
Sadie: But are there other trends and things that you'd like to see
Dr. Turner: I feel like we are at the beginning of an opportunity, right? We talked about the fact that people are discussing mental health, right? We have athletes coming forward and talking about their mental health journeys and stopping their careers to like take a break and regroup. And and I think there that's tremendous role modeling, right? But we still have to have many areas, right? There's a lot of gaps that still exist, you know. In the next 5 to 10 years, I'd love to see screening right where kids go into their pediatrician every year for their physical exam.
Dr. Turner: Let's talk to them about their mental health. Let's screen them for mental health issues, depression, anxiety. Let's coach parents to have those conversations, right? Then once we. you know, are able to do that, then we want to be able to have the resources that are available, right? We want providers, mental health providers workforce so that You know, whatever way you best like to see a therapist or receive support, whether it's, , by video, in person, do you want to see someone who's a woman?
Dr. Turner: Do you want to see someone who's of your same race and ethnicity? Right? Like, we have to have those options available. And I think more and more strides are being made To get that, those resources out there. But we have communities that are deeply underserved who are not able to get the resources that they need.
Dr. Turner: And oftentimes it is our BIPOC communities, our LGBTQ plus communities. We know that over 50 percent of our texters are LGBTQ plus. So, access is huge, right? Whether it's a language barrier, we have to, we have to improve access language. We have to. see that our providers are mental health providers are adequately reimbursed, right?
Dr. Turner: If insurance doesn't, they have to live too, right? And so many of them will just be self pay because they don't want to deal with partial reimbursements or no reimbursements. So we have to create that, that parity. We have to continue to have the legislative efforts that we've seen that have brought about you know, 988 that have started to push for the back of student I.
Dr. Turner: D. bills to have those resources. Crisis text line is one of those resources along with 988 and a local resource. Right? So making sure Any place that someone turns enables them to find the resource that the resources that they need. And then we had just have to look across the crisis continuum.
Dr. Turner: So crisis text line can be seen on the side of prevention, right? So someone who's stressed about their homework who gets support in that moment may not have it escalate up to something more serious. But if it does, we have to ensure that you know, people are, are getting the emergency care that they need, that mobile crisis units are accessible and available more than law enforcement.
Dr. Turner: Right. So that we're sending people to what they need. And then that there's an outpatient component that's available to everyone. So there's, there's some big gaps that in the next 10 years. Have to be addressed and they have to be addressed with an eye towards individual groups Because again what you know one Racial group or one gender group deals with can be vastly different So we have to put in the money and the research to meet communities where they are with what they need Yeah,
Sadie: I, I completely agree and I really love what you mentioned about using these existing structures, whether it's health class or pediatrician appointments and like crisis text line texting as a resource, 988, and as like an option or a substitute for 911 and using these existing contacts to make sure that everyone is aware of these resources.
Sadie: It is. has that educational piece and knows what to look for, what to be aware of, when to ask help, where you can go to ask help. And so I think that is absolutely huge. You mentioned a couple things in there that fall under the advocacy and initiative umbrella, but there's a big part of your role at Crisis TechSign.
Sadie: And so I was wondering as a community, how we can support that work and where you're passionate right now about putting time and attention in that space.
Dr. Turner: Yes. So right now. My team is focusing on many areas raising awareness, but also advocating at the university levels. So we partner with universities to help them get crisis text line out there as a resource.
Dr. Turner: We. We work with them so that they understand, you know, what are the specific issues for their students in the moment so they can direct what limited resources or whatever resources they might have. Again, we're advocating for, you know, 741741 to be on the back of student IDs so that they can, you know, whether they're electronic or, plastic, , that they always know and have a place to turn with crisis text line number present.
Dr. Turner: We're also looking to make sure that we're continuing to support different languages. So we were able to help to ensure that 988 was available in Spanish because we knew from our time at, you know, working at Crisis Text Line, we had already established for our 741741 number, a Spanish service and it was in use and it was getting out to Spanish speaking communities.
Dr. Turner: it's again, leaning towards that access right in the moment access for people who need it.
Sadie: Absolutely. I think that's huge and I think especially being at a university and being aware of Christ's text line as a resource and then seeing universities doing like adjacent services, whether it's like peer support texting and making these things universal would be so powerful and I think also provide so much clarity if we did have accurate trends about like Every college campus right now is struggling with these things and we can universally make these resources available .
Dr. Turner: I wanted to add as I was thinking about it. We really try to be a thought leader in text based crisis interventions because we've been around now for 10 years and we have this insight and we have this understanding.
Dr. Turner: So we were really able to advocate for over 500 million dollars in appropriations for the 988. suicide and crisis line. We actually are the largest national backup service for text and chat for 988. So we're an integral part of that system as well. And we, like I said, we're able to advocate for the 10 million appropriations that went for Spanish text and chat.
Dr. Turner: So we're really proud of our, our, our own individual organization for what it gives in terms of in the moment service, as well as this very unique data and insight component that helps people evolve the field, as well as our support of 980. Absolutely. Well, I think that everyone will leave this conversation with hope, which you mentioned is so important at the beginning of this episode for teens to have for individuals to have.
Dr. Turner: For listeners that want to hear you speak in the future, continue to watch the progress that Crisis Text Line is making.
Dr. Turner: Where can they find you guys? Obviously, you mentioned 741 741, which will be in the show notes. But what else can we be aware of to continue to support all the work you're doing? Yes. So you can find us, like you said, at 741 741, you can text HELP, you can text IUDA you can be met by a English speaking or Spanish speaking volunteer.
Dr. Turner: You can find us on WhatsApp and web chat. You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at Crisis Text Line. You can find me at Dr. Shiree. We're available and we're, we want. to, you know, continue to get our name out because we're free. We're free 24 seven high quality mental health support and crisis intervention for teens who are in need.
Dr. Turner: And we know how to work with teens. And we know that we are a resource, a very special resource for teens. And people can also come to our website, crisistextline. org and find a lot of. Tremendous resources on all mental health topics and also the opportunity to volunteer because we know that our volunteers are, you know, over the age of 18, but many, many are under the age of 24.
Dr. Turner: So they want to, you know, teens and young adults want to help. And this is an opportunity to do that in the comfort of your dorm room or your living room, but it's a way to give back. And our study on on our volunteers, our survey on our volunteers shows that volunteering, first of all, taking crisis text lines, training gives, volunteers the skill set, not just to support the platform, but in their real time relationships.
Dr. Turner: But whether it's in their community or in their homes or in their schools, they have skills to to really communicate and negotiate and empathize with others. So, and our volunteers find that helping others really enhances their own mental health. So we're always looking for people who are kind and empathetic to learn how to help folks who are in crisis.
Dr. Turner: Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Turner. This has been incredible. Thank you, Sadie. You're just an amazing interviewer. I appreciate you. Thank you.
Dr. Turner: Okay,
Sadie: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of she persisted. If you enjoyed, make sure to share with a friend or family member, it really helps out the podcast. And if you haven't already leave a review on apple podcasts or Spotify, you can also make sure to follow along at actually persisted podcast on both Instagram and Tik TOK, and check out all the bonus resources, content and information on my website.
Sadie: She persisted podcast.com. Thanks for supporting. Keep persisting and I'll see you next week.
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