Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle Have Both Made Secret Visits to the Shout Crisis Text Line
William, Kate, Harry and Meghan were praised today for their work behind the scenes in developing Shout, a crisis text line for those in need. Details of their support when the cameras are not rolling were revealed as William and Kate joined a volunteer celebration event for Shout, which the four young royals launched back in May.
Nancy Lublin, the Founder of Crisis Text Line in the U.S., told T&C that she was “so grateful” for how the royals have highlighted the service publicly and shared how they have also engaged in under-the-radar visits.
“They have been into our offices, I think, four times, at this point in time, quietly without anyone knowing,” Lublin said about the four young royals.
She added, “They’ve been to this event without anyone knowing last year. They are really here for the work.”
Describing how the young royals have “thrown themselves into hard issues,” she said: “I think they take their role very seriously, really learning about the data. Learning about how things work. I’m so grateful.”
Shout 85258 is a 24/7 text support service which was developed with a ￡3 million investment from the Royal Foundation and is powered by Crisis Text Line. There are now 1,500 volunteers active on the platform who currently handle an average 600 conversations each day. During the event today Prince William described developing Shout as an “amazing journey.” He added, “Catherine and I, and I know I speak for Harry and Meghan as well, couldn’t be more proud of what Shout has accomplished and what you have still to accomplish.”
The future king spoke of the “sad demand” for volunteers, adding, “The fact that we’ve had to launch Shout shows how much in need the mental health sector is at the minute.”
He also described how the Heads Together campaign “chipped away” at the stigma of mental heath but pointed out that “it was very important to us that we felt there was tangible support for the mental health community.”
At the event the royal couple also spoke with Ian Russell, father of Molly Russell who died by suicide in November 2017 at the age of 14 after looking at graphic content about suicide and self harm on Instagram.
“After Molly’s death, like so many parents who find themselves bereaved by suicide, we set up a memorial charity in her name,” Russell told T&C. “One of our aims is to better connect young people who need help with the support services that are there to help them. And I can’t think of a better way of doing it than the way Shout does it."
He added: "Of course I wonder had it been available in the U.K. when Molly was desperately seeking help in 2017 maybe she would be here today.”
Russell also outlined how the royals becoming involved with Shout “helps ensure that it’s in the news, that it’s seen on social media so that with that extra publicity families who need to know about it, and, more particularly, youngsters who need to know about it have somewhere to go if they need help.”
And he described their support as “an absolute genuine passion.” The Russell family received a letter from William earlier this year, which he described as a “very heartfelt, personal letter.”
“So it’s nice today to be able to thank him personally for sending us that letter, which did bring us lots of comfort,” he said.
Nancy Lublin told T&C that in 2016, she was seated next to Prince William at a dinner and said to him: “I’m so grateful of your courage, and it reminds me of your mother and what she did for HIV and Aids.”
“She was really the first and made it OK for...everyone to be able to talk about HIV and Aids. And you’re the first people of your stature to talk about mental health...and really reducing the stigma,” she said.
Describing how Crisis Text Line “spread across the U.S.” after it was launched, Ms. Lublin continued: “I like to say that we’re in a growth industry. Pain. Pain is a global growth industry...we just see the numbers rise.”
Today's event focused on celebrating the volunteers who operate the service and bringing them together. William and Kate posed for a photograph, and they also received a briefing on the impact of the service and statistics of those who have accessed it and why.
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