Central Coast Hotline to receive state-of-the-art upgrades, including new texting service

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- A sizable charitable donation will soon provide Central Coast Hotline with essential state-of-the-art equipment upgrades, the creation of a new texting service, and other significant improvements.

Must! Charities will provide $546,000 to Transitions-Mental Health Association (TMHA), which operates the 24-hour call-in crisis center, to help fund the transformational changes.

"Part of what Must! is doing is investing in the Hotline and bringing it into the 21st century," said Jill Bolster-White, TMHA Executive Director.

The grant will specifically replace an outmoded phone system, add a 24/7 texting service intended to reach young adults, as well as continue an innovative Brief Therapy Clinic, and eventually move the entire Hotline headquarters into a new building.

"A good portion of the grant is going to be upgrading and integrating cloud-based technology," said Hotline Program Manager Melanie Barket. "

"This new technology is really going to help us to reach a lot more people, and especially youth in this county."

Central Coast Hotline (formerly SLO Hotline) is a 24-hour, free and confidential call center that has served San Luis Obispo County since 1970.

In 2021, the program was rebranded as Central Coast Hotline in an effort to reach out and include communities in Santa Barbara County. "This new technology is really going to help us to reach a lot more people, and especially youth in this county."

The new texting service is seen as especially vital for young people as they learn to navigate emotionally during these current difficult times.

"Teenagers are more likely to text than to call on the telephone and one of the investments that Must! is making is in the phone software that will allow us to have texting access 24 hours a day," said Bolster-White.

All of the upcoming improvements are being done to help Hotline potentially join the new 988 National Lifeline, the new three-digit mental health crisis phone number that debuts across the country later this year.

"It's really important that we become a national suicide lifeline center so that when people call 988, they get routed to us," said Barket. "If we are not a lifeline center, when they call 988, they won't get routed to us. They'll be routed to LA or Bakersfield or Sacramento."

According to Hotline, over the last four years, it has received more than 10,000 calls annually, ranging from crisis and suicide prevention to general inquiries about mental health resources.

Central Coast Hotline can reached at any time at (800) 783-0607.

For more information about Transitions-Mental Health Association, click here.