#RealTimeCrisis Toronto Crisis Team Turns To Social Media To Save Lives by @LiamDevlinCasey @TorontoStar
Story appeared in Toronto Star Monday August 26, 2013 by reporter Liam Casey Thank you to Mark Horvath of InvisiblePeople.tv for inspiring this work. Toronto crisis team turns to social media to save lives. Real Time Crisis uses an innovative suicide intervention strategy — it goes directly, via social media, to people crying out for help. Photo For Online Story On #RealTimeCrisis @RealTimeCrisis Intervention To Save And Improve Lives In Toronto Star Monday August 26, 2013 Edition | photo by Rick Madodnik “Can I help?” Those three words can save lives. In fact, they are the very words that Anne Marie Batten — a Toronto street nurse involved in an innovative suicide intervention strategy — sends out over and over via Twitter as she talks down people in distress, some on the verge of taking their lives. For the past 18 months, Batten and Toronto police Const. Scott Mills have been working on a fledgling non-profit organization to help the mentally ill 24 hours a day on social media. They’ve dubbed it Real Time Crisis. “We’d rather not shoot somebody that’s in crisis,” said Mills. His employer, the Toronto police force, has come under intense scrutiny in recent [...]