By Blake Haas

BLOOMINGTON – McLean County’s PATH Crisis is adding 115 new jobs as the state of Illinois announced the call center would serve as the new 988 mental health and crisis intervention phone line.

Chris Workman, Executive Director at PATH Crisis, said the non-profit became a certified National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) in 2005 to answer calls for nine central Illinois counties.

According to Workman, that certification paved the way for PATH to become the new call center for the entire state.

“There’s the national suicide hotline that a lot of people know about. We’ve been answering that since 2005 for nine counties in central Illinois. This new 988 number, a three-digit number, easy to remember, is actually transitioning from the 1-800 to the three-digit 988 number.”

The new 988 number is coming to the nation on July 16, 2022, as part of the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act that was signed into law in October 2020.

“The big interesting part for Bloomington-Normal and the surrounding state is we are hiring 115 people as part of this explosion of growth,” Workman told WJBC’s Todd Wineburner. “Right now, I am really swamped with reviewing about 300 resumes we have received so far, it’s been kind of crazy, but we are having fun with it. But, we have a deadline. The state has a request that we are operational by July 1.”

Thanks to the explosion in growth, Workman said the call center would allow the organization to have ‘boots on the ground,’ who can go out and speak with individuals on site.

Due to the safety of the employees, the new location of the call center is not being disclosed.

Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].