988 Lifeline Timeline
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a phone, chat, and text service that provides free and confidential support to people in suicidal crisis or mental health related distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, across the U.S.
Behind the scenes, it’s a national network of more than 200 local, independent, and state crisis centers staffed with skilled, trained crisis counselors. The 988 Lifeline local centers are backed up by a national network of crisis contact centers. 988 offers specialized services for Spanish-language speakers and people who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, and connects Veterans, service members, and their families to the Veterans Crisis Line (VCL) for tailored support. 988 also uses Language Line Solutions to provide interpretation to callers in more than 240 additional languages.
- Congress appropriates funding for suicide prevention hotline
- SAMHSA awards a competitive grant to a single lead grantee to establish a network of crisis centers that can answer calls from their local communities
- The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline launched with the 1-800-273-8255 (TALK)
- Received 46K calls in the first year
- The Lifeline adds a Spanish language subnetwork (now “Press 2”) on 1-800-273-8255
- Lifeline adds chat service.
- Disaster Distress Helpline added into the Lifeline network, with a different phone number and SAMHSA funding source
- Lifeline chat link added to Google search engine when a person types “suicide” or related terms
- The National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act becomes law. It requires a feasibility study into designating a three-digit dialing code for a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline system
- The National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2020 becomes law. It requires the FCC to designate 988 as the universal number for a national suicide prevention and mental health crisis hotline
- English text service added to the Lifeline
- Lifeline volume has grown to 3.3M calls, chats, and texts
- On July 16, 2020, the FCC issues the final order designating 988 as the new Lifeline and Veterans Crisis Line number, requiring all U.S. telecommunication providers to activate 988 for all subscribers by July 16, 2022
- The FCC added to their order that all U.S. telecommunication providers also activate text to 988 by July 16, 2022
- The country transitions to 988, an easy-to-remember, three-digit dialing code
- Around 200 local, independently owned and operated crisis centers operate in the Lifeline network
- Spanish-language text and chat service added to the 988 Lifeline (text "ayuda" to 988)
- Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing videophone service added to the 988 Lifeline
- 988 Lifeline answers nearly 5 million contacts in its first year
- 988 implements improved local call routing through georouting for wireless calls.
- FCC adopts rule requiring all wireless carriers to implement georouting for texts by Oct. 16, 2028.