About THRIVE

Thriving Harnesses Respect, Inclusion, and Vested Empathy: A crisis text line staffed by marginalized individuals in STEM.

THRIVE Lifeline is a grassroots response to COVID-19, organized by experienced crisis managers who personally understand the significance of displacement, isolation, and financial loss, especially for marginalized individuals in STEM.

The summer of 2020 was particularly tumultuous for minority students due to a variety of reasons including, but not limited to: racist acts against Asian-Americans; police brutality, protests, and national discussions of systemic racism; removal of healthcare protections for transgender people, and the devastating impact and associated uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amid a crisis of global scale, many marginalized individuals face greater personal crises, including being sent to unsupportive and/or dangerous home environments, greater health risks, job, food, and home insecurity, and the inability to access what may be their only safe community.

Who Are We?

THRIVE Lifeline is Trans-led and operated. We are a group of certified suicide interventionists whose identities are marginalized, and who are students and early career professionals trained across the breadth of STEMM fields.

We are made up of individuals with the following identities: LGBTQIA+ (95%), women and nonbinary (75%), Persons of Color (70%), transgender (65%), living with disabilities (50%), and immigrants (15%). Our backgrounds include familial rejection due to our identities, homelessness, poverty, and working multiple jobs before being able to access and/or while accessing education. Many of us are individuals who have navigated accommodations processes during our academic journeys as a result of neurodivergence, living with disabilities, and/or facing trauma.

Mission

THRIVE Lifeline’s mission is to end stigma and close access gaps for underrepresented individuals who seek educational and professional opportunities. Particularly, we believe that equity and inclusion begins with person-centered and whole-human support, including access to crisis intervention, validation, and resources.

We fulfill our mission by:

• Providing texters with free 24/7 hotline support by trained, non-judgmental Crisis Responders who share underrepresented identities and backgrounds.
• Reducing suicide risk through literature-based deescalation practices and by connecting texters with life-saving and life-affirming resources.
• Using anonymized data to train leaders and advocate for representation in more welcoming and inclusive educational and professional spaces.

Vision

We envision academic and professional spaces that actively and equitably include everyone, removing stigma and minimizing underrepresentation.

Core Values

• Accessibility: THRIVE Lifeline remains 100% free to texters. We believe that access to life-affirming and life-saving resources is crucial.
• Connection: Often, our texters are ‘the only one’ in their families, in their departments, in their labs, in their classrooms. When a texter reaches out to THRIVE Lifeline, they are not alone.
• Inclusion: Representation matters. Being recognized at the core of who you are is the center of inclusion. Whoever you are, wherever you are from, THRIVE welcomes you.
• Integrity: We uphold the highest standards of communications, support, and confidentiality, knowing that the heart of our work involves people at their most vulnerable times.

We believe that it is together that we THRIVE.

We need your help in order to keep THRIVE Lifeline as a vital resource! You can help by volunteering, contributing, and sharing.

• Volunteer: No prior experience is necessary. We are looking for active listeners with a passion for underrepresented individuals and a willingness to learn. We are especially seeking responders who are persons of color, persons living with disabilities, Two Spirit, trans-femme and/or femme nonbinary individuals, and/or veterans.

If crisis response is not a good fit, we are additionally seeking:

• Resource Manager: This volunteer will manage the vetting and addition of new resources to our database.
• Outreach Assistant: This volunteer will assist with outreach, sharing THRIVE Lifeline as a resource and broadening the impact of the hotline.
• Training Assistant: This volunteer will support our Crisis Responders in Training (CRiT) by acting as texters to the hotline and conducting practice text-based interactions at appointed times (within the Assistant’s scheduled availability). The volunteer will be given one scripted scenario, along with its desired CRiT learning outcomes. A practice interaction will be approximately 40-60 min. While you are free to use sample responses as long as they flow in the conversations, please be advised that improvisation and adjustments will be required, based on a CRiT’s responses to your role-played texter’s statements.
• Web Media Manager: This volunteer will manage THRIVES social media presence.
• Apply Here
• Questions? Contact us
  
• Contribute: We are currently raising $60,000 to purchase and integrate a professional SMS platform that will allow us to increase our call volume while providing optimal service to our texters. We are additionally seeking funds to train 20 new suicide interveners in the upcoming year.
  • GoFundMe.
    
• Share: If you or anyone that you know is in need of support, THRIVE Lifeline is providing 100% confidential, judgement-free text-based support at +1(313)662-8209

Please be advised that our text line supports individuals 18+.

If at any time you would like to stop a text-based conversation, please text STOP. Conversations are 100% confidential.

Under 18?

For general support, please reach out to Boys Town National Hotline. Despite the name, this hotline is for people of all genders.

24/7 call-based support:

• +1(800)448-3000.

Text-based support:

• Text VOICE to 20121.

For LGBTQ+ support, please reach out to The Trevor Project.

24/7 call-based support:

• +1(866)488-7386.

Text-based support:

• Text START to 678-678.