A crisis hotline run by and for teenagers turns 40
Updated: 2 days ago
By Mira Preston
Teen Lifeline has spent decades in the valley providing real-time peer crisis support, youth suicide awareness and prevention training, and educational services to teens, parents, and schools statewide. Now in its 40th year, the crisis hotline has received over 400,000 calls and texts from teenagers seeking support, according to a 2025 impact report from the organization.
Teenage volunteers, known as Peer Counselors, man the organization’s hotline, answering calls and texts from teens every day from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. — hours when teens are out of school and need support most. Teens reach out to the hotline for a number of different reasons, according to John Patris-Browne, Chief Advancement Officer for Teen Lifeline. A third of calls are suicide-related, while others relate to any crisis that teens face, like abuse, neglect, interpersonal relationships, and addiction.
Teen Lifeline began in 1986 in Phoenix’s Central High after local mental health experts saw a need for better services for teens in Arizona, then the
second-worst state for teen suicide. Today, Arizona’s teen suicide rate is much improved from its 1986 ranking, according to America’s Health Rankings, but rates have been on the rise for the past decade, making preventative measures for teens a high priority.
In 2025 Teen Lifeline opened a new office in Tucson, an important step in ensuring that Southern Arizona teens feel like a priority. Pima County has a higher suicide rate than Maricopa County, according to data from the Arizona Suicide Prevention Coalition, making outreach to teens there especially important. The Tucson location has its own Peer Counselors, part of the 100 total who volunteer for the hotline.
In 2017, Teen Lifeline added the ability for teens to text the hotline. They were a “late adopter” of the texting method compared to other hotlines, according to Morgan Hines, Teen Lifeline’s Director of Crisis Services, because they wanted to ensure that they were setting up their Peer Counselors for success with a new system. Since the pandemic, they’ve been receiving more texts than calls, and often teens will start with texting before deciding they’d feel more comfortable talking on the phone.
“We do occasionally have kids who start texting in, and then they realize, well, this is going to be really long for me to type this out,” said Hines. “And they’ll be like, can we just talk on the phone instead?”
Peer Counselors undergo 80 hours of initial training before they begin taking calls. This training doesn’t just allow them to man the hotline; it helps them build essential life skills and create a community with their peers. Patris-Browne likens the center to a firehouse for the volunteers.
“When they’re here at Teen Lifeline they’re connected, which is really special,” Patris-Browne said. “They’re cooking, they’re eating, sometimes taking a nap on the couch, playing video games. It becomes a second home to the volunteers. A place they want to spend time. And then that phone rings.”
Like how firefighters react to the alarm, Patris-Browne continued, the Peer Counselors hear the phone ring and jump into action. “It’s really powerful to compare it to being a firefighter,” he said, “because it’s such important, life-saving work, too.”
Teen Lifeline also provides a number of other services. Throughout its 40 years, they have maintained their dedication to suicide prevention education in schools through tabling, classroom workshops, and resource fairs. In addition, Teen Lifeline’s ID Initiative has placed the hotline number on the backs of student IDs in high schools across the state.
Tune, a Peer Counselor, first heard about Teen Lifeline in her freshman year, when they did a presentation in her class. She remembered feeling “mesmerized” by the work they did, and knew right away that she wanted to be a part of it.
“Teen Lifeline is incredibly important because it not only gives our callers hope during some of the hardest moments of their lives, but it also gives us volunteers a safe place to turn when life gets difficult, too,” Tune said.
“Sometimes, all someone needs is one person to listen, and getting to be that person is something I’ll never take for granted. Knowing that I get to be a small part of reminding someone why they’re not alone is one of the biggest reasons why this work means so much to me.”
For more information, visit TeenLifeline.org. For help, call or text Teen Lifeline at
(602) 248-TEEN (8336) in Phoenix or (520) 327-TEEN (8336) in Tucson.
Image courtesy of Teen Lifeline.
