Crisis Line Training Course for Volunteers at Jewish House
Sydney’s Jewish House runs a 24/7 crisis line where people can get assistance any time of the day or night. To date the crisis line has been manned by Rabbi Kastel with backup of the staff at Jewish House. We put a call out for volunteers who were interested in helping us man the phones, and we were pleasantly surprised at the many responses that we received.
Jewish House volunteers
After initial interviews with Rabbi Kastel we had approximately 45 people who were invited to attend our crisis line training course.
The course ran over a period of 8 weeks with one session of 2 ½ hours per week. They were extremely informative with experts in all the various fields coming to JH to impart their wisdom. Kim Huckerby was the coordinator and she did an amazing job.
The first session was presented by Monica Kleinman who spoke about beliefs and attitudes and generally gave us the benefit of her many years of training in the armed forces. Other trainers included Dr Karen Fisher from Nepean Hospital, Black Dog Institute, Homeless NSW, Rodney Coles from Wesley Mission and Rev Bill Crews from Exodus Foundation.
The subjects covered were:
- Child protection and abuse
- Domestic violence
- Suicide
- Depression
- Mental health
- Homelessness
- Drugs and alcohol
- Addictions and Dependencies
- Child Protection
Matt Noff from Ted Noffs kindly came at the end of the course to hand out certificates of completion to the successful trainees and he talk about their organisation and how much admiration he had for people who volunteer their time as our volunteers are doing.
We have started the volunteers on the lines after their completion of course and we are feeling very positive as we have now expanded the capacity of the crisis line.
