Teen-to-teen help is what Teen Line, a program of Didi Hirsch mental health services, is all about.

There are three ways teens can reach the Teen Line: call, text or email. Teen line can be reached via phone at 800-852-8336 (800-TLC-TEEN), via text by texting TEEN to 839863, or via email.

A high school volunteer will be on the other end of that call or message, hoping to help connect their peers with resources or talk them through whatever struggles they may be going through. Volunteers answer phone calls, emails and texts Monday through Friday from 6 to 10 p.m. Any calls outside of those hours are automatically forwarded to 988, a suicide and crisis lifeline that is answered 24/7.

All teen volunteers receive more than 100 hours of training to handle the calls and messages. Mental health professionals are on standby to offer guidance to the volunteers and to give the volunteers someone to talk to, too. In 2022, Teen Line responded to 6,577 contacts from young people. Of the contacts, 33% were calls, 45% texts and 22% emails. Relationships, anxiety/stress, depression, suicide and mental health concerns were the top five reasons people reached out in 2022.