Syracuse University’s Student Association is leading a coalition that’s in the process of finalizing a partnership with Crisis Text Line, a free service that provides help to people in need of emotional support.

The partnership would allow Crisis Text Line to access data acquired through students’ use of the text line. In exchange for the data, the university could market the service as if it created it.

The SA-led coalition includes four local institutions: SU, SUNY-ESF, Le Moyne College and Onondaga Community College. SU will be the signing partner in the agreement. Student governments from the other schools have backed the partnership.

James Franco, SA’s president, on Sunday said that as far as he knows the partnership should be operational by the end of the spring semester.

Crisis Text Line can be reached by texting the word “HOME” to 741741. The service, which allows anyone to text a trained volunteer counselor, is available 24 hours per day.

The organization stores data collected from conversations in its Crisis Trends database, which tracks prevalent trends for different issues including anxiety, bullying, substance abuse and suicidal thoughts.

Students from the four coalition schools will be able to access Crisis Text Line by texting the keyword “STRENGTH.” After a certain number of students start conversations with that keyword, a report will be made available.

Students can still access the Text Line without the keyword, but any data collected from the ensuing conversation would not be included in coalition’s dataset.

“The student government at Syracuse University and people at Syracuse University are supporting you and anything that you need mental-health wise,” said Angie Pati, SA’s vice president.

Pati said SA wanted to be sure that health and wellness organizations around campus were on board with the partnership. The association secured the backing of the Office of Health Promotion, Office of Student Assistance and the Counseling Center, she said.

It’s still not clear who would have access to the data report if the project were to be finalized.

The Crisis Text Line requires partner institutions to have at least 35,000 students in order to ensure anonymity. Because SU does not have that many students, joining forces with other local schools became a necessity.

Jared Wolf, the Crisis Text Line’s media manager, said the minimum requirement was set so data can be completely anonymous.

“We want to be sure that there’s enough variety, velocity and volume of data that we are providing value to Syracuse and the other partners,” Wolf said.

Crisis Text Line had received roughly 3,700 conversations from people located in Onondaga County, he added.

Wolf said the University of Alabama had also launched a student-led partnership, adding that the school’s counseling center holds access to the data. The center is free to share data with the university’s student government, which is leading the marketing efforts.

Pati said she hopes the data will help SU’s Counseling Center tailor their resources to student needs.

“I think it should be the Counseling Center looking at this information,’ Pati said. “I think they should have access to this information so that they can … analyze it to provide resources.”

Published on January 28, 2018 at 9:51 pm

Contact Ryan: rarozenb@syr.edu