The Illinois Department of Human Services saw an increased need to support mental health during the pandemic. They needed to develop a new tool that would make it easy to connect people who need help with local mental health professionals during the shelter in place order. CCL developed a new text-based messaging solution that was up and running within a matter of weeks.
Hospitals and clinics are closed and cannot see patients in person during shelter-in-place. Illinois required a proactive solution to connect people with mental health care services. They needed to enable the community to easily connect with a local mental provider.
✓ Text Reminders
☐ Interactive Surveys
☐ Eligibility Screening
✓ Intelligent Referrals
☐ Document Verification
✓ Call Scheduling
In partnership with the State of Illinois’ Division of Mental Health, CCL developed Call4Calm, a text-based hotline, where people can simply send a text message to connect with local mental health professionals within 24-48 hours in English or Spanish.
The Call4Calm hotline is free of charge to everyone in the state of Illinois. Upon texting 552020, the user will receive an automatic prompt asking for their first name and zip code to be connected with a local professional. Outside of mental health, you can also text other coronavirus-related questions to that number, and be provided with a resource. The Call4Calm service is available in English and Spanish.
The solution proved impactful to the Illinois Department of Human Services, local and regional hospitals, and to the patient population statewide.
Multilingual text messages proved to be straightforward to implement and the easiest way to reach a broad audience.
Testing the technology with dozens of mental health providers and different IT was the biggest barrier to launch.
