Are you a Good Listener?

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Do your friends tell you that you're a good listener? Are you compassionate and non-judgmental? Do you want to help people who have no one else to turn to? If you answered yes, then being a Concern Hotline Listener is the volunteer opportunity for you!

Concern Hotline was established in Winchester, VA in 1968 as a 24/7 suicide prevention hotline, but has grown in scope over the past 40 years to include providing compassionate listening, information and referral, and crisis intervention services to hundreds of thousands of people in the Northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

We provide our callers with the opportunity to share their problems without judgment, and we acknowledge their suffering and desire to improve their situation. We provide them with information about services available to help them overcome their challenges, and we comfort them in their time of crisis.

Volunteers are provided extensive training in Active Listening, the key component of our service to callers, as well as an overview of the many topics that come up on the hotline and the local resources available to callers.

Hotline calls are dispatched through an Answering Service, so Volunteers can take calls from their home or cell phone.

"I tend to live life at a high-speed, overbooked, often frantic pace. With four hours a week set aside to provide a place of kindness, calm reassurance, and peace for strangers I find my own life has gained more than four hours of kindness, calmness, and peace."

- Hotline Volunteer