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Mental health crisis lines might see an uptick in use soon, as a recent surge in federal funding cuts caused Uplift Wisconsin Warmline to cease operations on April 8.
With suicide rates higher than the state average and only one mental healthcare provider for every 780 residents, mental health crisis hotlines are an important part of the mental health ecosystem in Door County. Every Wisconsin county is required to have its own crisis line through its health and human services department and in 2022, the state established a 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline to meet emergent mental health needs.
The Uplift Warmline, launched in August 2023, is operated by Mental Health America of Wisconsin, a 95-year-old nonprofit mental health organization. It was initially funded by a $600,000 grant from the Wisconsin Department of Health and Human Services, as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, according to Martina Gollin-Graves, president and CEO of Mental Health America of Wisconsin.
Warmlines differ from hotlines in that they are intended to provide peer support to callers who need emotional support, rather than callers who are having a serious mental health crisis and may need clinical support.
As of March 24, the remainder of federal funding to the program was cut. The organization was notified of those cuts three days later, on March 27, when Gollin-Graves received a letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“There was a lot of scrambling,” she said.
On April 4, a federal judge put in place a temporary restraining order in response to Wisconsin and 22 other states filing an injunction against the Trump administration for cutting almost $12 billion in funding allocated to states for public health services. A hearing scheduled for April 16 was moved back to May 1, but Gollin-Graves said the organization made an “executive decision, until we had secure funding, we would need to close the warmline.”
The 2025-2027 state budget proposed by Gov. Tony Evers earmarked $1.1 million for peer-run warmlines like Uplift. That budget will not pass until June 2025 and there is no guarantee that the money will stay earmarked as is because there are so many other needs resulting from cuts, Gollin-Graves said.
Ultimately, Uplift lost $300,000 for the remainder of its contract. In order to bridge the gap between now and when the state budget is approved, Mental Health America of Wisconsin needs $150,000, she said. That would mean operating at a limited capacity, with fewer staff and fewer hours, according to Gollin-Graves, but they would still be providing a valuable resource to the state.
There are some grant applications pending and a Gofundme page for the warm line. Mental Health America of Wisconsin is also hosting a fundraiser in Appleton on May 10.
“If we’re lucky, and we get a Hail Mary or some wonderful angel, then we would publicly reopen with a limited capacity until we did have secure funding,” Gollin-Graves said.
Warm versus hot
The difference between a mental health warmline and a mental health crisis hotline lies in the word “crisis,” Gollin-Graves explained. Warmlines were developed in the last decade or so to help people before they reached the point of needing mental health crisis or emergency services, she said.
Warmlines are also a “nonclinical alternative,” according to Gollin-Graves. Uplift is staffed by peer support specialists, an evidence-based practice where people with lived experience of mental health and substance use disorders are trained to help other people suffering.
“People who maybe have similar issues can truly be a support and help in a way, in a different way, than a professional,” Gollin-Graves said. “People with lived experience who have walked the walk, maybe navigated health care systems, psychiatric health care systems, really do have value in helping people understand how to get through it.”
Between confidentiality and connection to peers who understand what callers are going through, Gollin-Graves said, populations who didn’t feel safe or supported by traditional crisis systems are harmed by the warmline’s closure.
The service was especially impactful for marginalized communities, such as LGBTQIA+ individuals, veterans, rural residents and others from diverse backgrounds, because they often face barriers to access mental health and trauma-informed care, according to a press release issued by Gollin-Graves about the cuts.
Crisis lines like the one operated by Door County Health and Human Services Department and 988 Lifeline are meant for situations where someone is threatening suicide or homicide, or being confronted with a highly stressful scenario like the death of a loved one, job loss or a breakup. Staff is trained to assess the situation and determine whether an in-person response is necessary. That response differs from county to county, but is usually HHS behavioral services staff or law enforcement or a combination of the two that respond in-person.
Uplift received about 24,000 calls statewide in 2024, averaging about 2,000 each month, Gollin-Graves said, and was on a trajectory to exceed that number in 2025, with over 7,500 calls in the first quarter of this year. Uplift received less than 50 calls from Door County in November 2024, according to the most recent available data from the organization. Door County comprises about 0.52 percent of Wisconsin’s total population. Uplift began by serving only Milwaukee county, with the federal grant funding in 2023 allowing it to expand to serve the entire state. Mental Health America was working on raising awareness of the warmline’s existence, Gollin-Graves said.
Most of the calls were people who avoided acute services like the emergency room or law enforcement interaction by calling Uplift.
“My guess is we’ll see a rise in that, an increase of those kinds of interactions, which are so unhealthy for the individual, the community, the families that support the individuals. It just has a ripple effect,” she said.
County crisis line
Janelle Hollingshead, president of Prevent Suicide Door County, has struggled with suicidal ideation on and off her entire life. She said she has called the Door County crisis line many times, even though she is a very healthy person who is able to manage her mental illness and has never self-harmed.
Hollingshead was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder when she was 18 years old, and she said one of the symptoms of her brain’s chemical imbalance is the desire to self-harm. It manifests as the idea that by ending her life she would be doing the right thing for her family, that it would be better for them if she was gone.
“That’s what the illness does to my brain,” she said, and talking to friends and family is not helpful, because “they don’t understand, they get freaked out. I’m not in a rational state at that point so normal conversation tactics don’t work when the problem is chemical.”
When she has called the county crisis line, she said it is a relief to be able to speak her thoughts out loud and say, “I’m thinking of cutting myself, or I’m thinking of stabbing myself.” The violent thoughts get released from her brain and she said she can hear how ridiculous they are.
After Hollingshead tells the crisis line worker her thoughts, she said she receives validation and they help her follow a plan to get her brain chemicals back in balance, whether that is through mindfulness practice, exercise, watching some funny YouTube videos, or something as simple as eating a piece of fruit. Sometimes they will determine whether she needs a follow-up call as well.
When someone calls Door County’s crisis line, they are actually going to be talking to someone in Green Bay. Family Services of Northeastern Wisconsin, headquartered in Green Bay, has been contracted to staff the Door County crisis line since 2014. The organization has contracts with 16 counties in the state to provide crisis line support.
There are always somewhere between two and six Family Services staffers who provide 24-hour support to Door County’s line, and try to de-escalate the crisis by phone, according to Director Holli Fisher.
If immediate intervention is needed, Family Services contacts Door County HHS, Fisher said, and one of three crisis and outreach case managers in the behavioral health department will respond in-person to the situation, performing an assessment and going from there.
In 2022, HHS was struggling to cover that in-person crisis intervention piece, according to Director Joe Krebsbach. Behavioral health staff who were already working full-time did not want to be on-call for outreach during off hours too, he said, so the department created two new positions to cover the after-hours interventions.
Those positions have been consistently filled since then, according to HHS Behavioral Health Program Manager Jamie Cole, and have significantly lessened the workload on the rest of the crisis team members who have full-time first shift positions at HHS.
Crisis workers receive 40 hours of training before they start on-call, as well as ongoing supervision and eight additional hours of training each year, Cole said.
Often, law enforcement is the first point of contact during a crisis, Cole said, and both the Door County Sheriff’s Office and local police are well-versed in connecting with Family Services or HHS to “triage the situation,” she added.
The Door County crisis line received 214 calls in 2014, when Family Services began their contract and received 752 calls in 2024.
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
The 988 Lifeline Wisconsin was launched in July 2022 and is also operated through the Family Services Center of Northeast Wisconsin, under its Crisis Services division. 988 is part of a national network of more than 200 crisis centers supported by local and state sources as well as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Family Services provides 20 services besides crisis line staffing, including the Sexual Assault Center. The organization employs 100 staff members to cover the 988 Lifeline 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They do not employ any peer support specialists, but according to Jenny Younk, crisis services director at Family Services, it is something the organization has been looking into and is a matter of finding the funding to add additional employees.
Current employees are required to have at least a bachelor’s degree in a human services area, like psychology or social work, and Family Services provides 60 hours of training, according to Younk. Some of that is classroom-style training and some is experiential, observing and shadowing other staffers.
The 988 Lifeline is not designed to be an ongoing mental health provider, Younk said, but there are familiar contacts who might call daily, or there are people that call crisis-to-crisis or as things arise between regular mental healthcare appointments. Short-term emotional support and de-escalation are the goals of the hotline.
Crisis Services can provide referrals through a statewide database of resources, but in the case of Door County, if someone is referred to outpatient care, “there may be a couple local (resources) but oftentimes we’re providing them a wider base and looking into Brown County for those resources,” Younk said.
The 988 Lifeline received 498 calls from Door County residents between April 2024 and March 2025.
99.8 percent of calls to 988 in Wisconsin are resolved without emergency intervention, she added, and it is safe to say without the hotline, many of those would turn into situations involving law enforcement or hospitalization.
Taking care of the care workers
Uplift staff has been through “a very difficult time,” according to Gollin-Graves, with the funding cuts and subsequent legal actions. The job is a tough one already, she added, and she sees her staff getting through the latest uncertainty and stress by relying on each other.
The 20 furloughed Uplift operators and other organization staff have been “supportive of me as leadership, having to make these horrible decisions, but more so of each other,” she said. Operators and other staff got together at different times based on their schedules and talked about how they were feeling and what they needed.
“Oh my gosh, they just lifted each other up,” Gollin-Graves said.
Fisher and Younk at Family Services said their organization supports staff in a similar way, and has created an internal culture of prioritizing self-care and employee mental health. Crisis line operators typically last about a year or two before they move on to jobs with less vicarious trauma, Fisher said.
The unmet mental health needs of the community are what keep Fisher coming to work, she said. “I just feel like the current socio-political climate is very heavy, and these resources are crucial for our communities to assist people. I believe in the value of these services, and they are needed and essential. So that’s what keeps me going.”
Operators and staff hang on to the successes. “When you get a phone call back, or you get a card sent saying, you made a difference, if you didn’t pick up the phone, I wouldn’t be here,” Younk said.
At Door County HHS, crisis staff are very passionate and dedicated, according to Cole, and the team in place has been pretty consistent. The department has had some staffing challenges though, particularly a behavioral health coordinator position that remains vacant. While the vacancies do not appear to be impacting client care, Cole said, “we have had to be creative to ensure our team receives clinical support.”
The HHS psychologist, director, deputy director, community services coordinator and Cole herself have been working together to fill the gap, she said, and Cole is overseeing the administrative functions of the crisis services currently.
Moving forward with awareness
Crisis line staff are always looking for ways to be more effective in reaching people who still are not connected with the service, but who may need it, Younk said. Spreading awareness that help exists and normalizing being open about the mental illnesses and conditions that cause people to be suicidal or in crisis is crucial, she said.
Hollingshead is passionate about suicide prevention and agreed that talking about it is the first step. A relative of hers, Cheryl Wilson, started Prevent Suicide Door County when her young adult son took his own life. He was chronically ill and depressed, and his mom “didn’t know you should talk about it,” she said.
There is a misconception that if you think someone is suicidal, you should not ask about it because it will make them more likely to hurt themselves, Hollingshead said. “That’s not true. It’s the opposite, it helps putting it out there.”
She advocated the “QPR” method, which is what Prevent Suicide members teach in the free suicide prevention workshops and talks they offer. It stands for “question, persuade, refer.”
If there is someone you think is suicidal, ask them “are you thinking of harming yourself?” Hollingshead said. If they say yes, then validate them and persuade them to get help. Refer them to a resource, like a crisis line, and stay with them while they call or seek support, she said.
“It would be amazing if people could treat it like a cold or another illness, if we were able to talk about it when it’s small instead of hiding thoughts until they get big,” Hollingshead said.
Sometimes people feel an obligation that they need to say the right thing to someone contemplating suicide, Younk said, or they might try to change the subject or say something that is not helpful.
But you do not have to know how to “fix it,” she added, you just have to support them in getting to a resource.
“If a loved one had come to you with a plumbing question and you didn’t know how to fix it, you would refer them to a plumber. It’s the same sort of thing with medical health, mental health. Refer them to someone who can fix it…Just pointing people in the right direction is so crucial,” Younk said.
As long as the “right direction” still exists, that is. “People just want to know that they matter and that they’re not alone,” Gollin-Graves said. She wants policy makers especially to understand that funding cuts to these programs have a human cost.
“These are real people, not arbitrary parts of an algorithm,” she said. “These are real people with real lives, and this is being taken away, and we are putting people’s lives at risk. And so how do people account for that? How do our policy makers account for their decisions?”