JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Phone lines stayed busy Tuesday as mental health professionals answered calls from people looking for information on resources in the community. The one-day phone bank was part of the roll out of Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan's new Mental Health Matters Jax initiative.
Lynn Sherman, the Director of Health Programs with the City of Jacksonville, estimated more than 200 people called in throughout the 12-hour window.
"We're getting calls from parents, from grandparents, we're getting them from teenagers," Sherman explained.
Volunteers were on hand directing callers to the best resources for their situations. According to Mayor Deegan, the United Way of Northeast Florida's 988 crisis center has seen a 75% rise in calls since 2022. Sherman believes this increase stems from the COVID-19 pandemic which changed people's lives and forced people into isolation.
"It increasingly got worse because the stressors that families are dealing with have gotten increasingly worse. The pressures are much more than people are able to deal with these days," Sherman said.
Suzanna Mailloux is the Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Jacksonville and one of the volunteers taking calls. She heard from people of all ages and backgrounds, including parents calling about help for their children.
"We do have young people who are calling, there are a lot of parents who will call about not only their youth, but young adults. We have some older families who are calling about adult children with serious mental illness," Mailloux said.
Mailloux said many people do not seek help because they do not know where to start, but this phone bank provided a first step for someone looking to make a change.
“It can be very confusing, and sometimes you run into situations where you can't get an appointment right away. And it's just really hard to understand where to go. But that's why we're here," Mailloux explained.
If you missed the window to call into the phone bank, visit the city's new mental health resource website.