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Samaritans Southcoast will soon become Massachusetts’ only full-service center for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
The regional nonprofit dedicated to suicide prevention and crisis counseling will expand its services beyond phone calls to include all texts and chats initiated in the state and will be running 24/7 by October 2026.
The expansion is made possible through a $500,000 grant from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. In addition, a new contract from the state will provide $500,000 a year through 2031 to continue the 988 Lifeline text and chat services.
Until now, none of the five call centers in Massachusetts answered messages to 988, and they were instead answered by national backup centers.
In 2023, the 988 number received about 17,000 text messages from Massachusetts cell phones, according to its administrator. Calls to the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline routed to Massachusetts increased by more than a third from 2023 to 2025. Samaritans Southcoast answered more than one-fifth of Massachusetts calls in 2025.
In March 2026, Samaritans Southcoast launched text and chat response pilot services, after receiving the grant in fall 2025. The money allows Samaritans Southcoast to expand recruiting, training, staffing and equipment to respond to the demand for text and chat, Executive Director Darcy H. Lee said in an interview. She said Samaritans Southcoast expects to grow its 60-person workforce by approximately 30%, including paid employees, student interns and volunteers.
Since early this year, Samaritans Southcoast has been testing three-hour to six-hour answering blocks to see what time of day is busier for text and chat and will need the most staff, Lee said. Data provided by Lee reflects a statewide demand of 13,880 texts or chats from March 1, 2026, to June 18, 2026.
Christine Rizza, training and outreach director of Samaritans Southcoast, said that when the center first received the money, they were told to be prepared for only a few chats or texts a day, but that since the service went live, “It is constant. It does not stop.”
“Now that we got chat and text, I’m realizing, ‘Wow, this goes a lot deeper than the people we were reaching before,’” Rizza said. The training for new members joining Samaritans Southcoast will remain just as thorough, Rizza said, but will be adapted to incorporate Samaritans Southcoast’s values of listening, caring and empathy into text and chat format.
Rizza said the biggest differences in training are preparing the staff for longer conversations and adapting to texting language and shorthand.
Jennifer Kelliher, managing director of Massachusetts Coalition for Suicide Prevention, said that while many factors can influence why there are more calls and texts to the 988 Lifeline, one is increased awareness of the number’s existence. According to Vibrant’s state-based monthly data, calls to the 988 Lifeline have been steadily increasing in Massachusetts since its rollout in July 2022.
Massachusetts has one of the lowest rates of death by suicide per 100,000 total population, ranking fourth lowest in 2024 with an 8.3 rate, according to CDC Suicide Mortality data. In 2019 the Centre for Suicide Prevention reported that, in general, up to 135 people are affected by a single death by suicide, including people who knew the deceased.
For Wendy Vieira, the catalyst to join Samaritans Southcoast was when she lost her daughter Emily to suicide in April 2018. Vieira joined as a phone line volunteer in July 2018.
“I see it as an extension of [Emily’s] heart,” Vieira said of answering the 988 Lifeline calls. “I see it as something her heart would have wanted.”
At first, she was terrified of answering the phone lines, Vieira said, but she’s now grateful for it, because it teaches her to be present.
“I’m always in the past with what happened to my daughter,” Vieira said. “I don’t know if I would be here if I hadn’t been associated with [Samaritans Southcoast] so close after losing Emily.”
She said by helping people who call the 988 Lifeline, she feels as though she can extend the help she wishes she could have provided Emily.
Vieira, now a board member, said the funding from DPH represents a greater attention to suicide prevention from the government, one that comforts and encourages her. She said it’s important to meet people where they are mentally without judgment, and for many young people, she added, that’s in texting.
Madison Edwards, a clinical psychology master’s student at Bridgewater State University, started with Samaritans Southcoast as a student intern in 2024 and is now an outreach volunteer. She entered the program because she wanted “to get comfortable discussing suicide” before entering the mental health profession, and she felt as though the programs in school were incomplete in preparing her for that. For her, it was important to learn to communicate with people in crisis.
Edwards said she stuck with Samaritans Southcoast after her 100-hour internship because she felt its training changed how she went about her life and viewed conversations with others. Edwards recalled spending hours after her shift was over to complete a call with someone, even though it was not required.
She said she thinks that text and chat will add a layer of privacy for people trying to reach the 988 Lifeline, expanding the impact of Samaritans Southcoast’s work.
“The way we engage in the world is often very transactional,” Edwards said. “Very rarely do we focus on the other individual… how could I go through knowing I can help people in this way and not take the opportunity to help them?”
Email Anna Albrecht at aalbrecht@newbedfordlight.org.