My leadership experience here at Crisis Text Line is one that was beneficial since it gave me experience in the mental health field while also helping me train to become a crisis texting counselor. I learned a lot about helping other during situations as well as how to de-escalate problems to prevent negative outcomes. A leadership insight that I learned here was resilience since taking conversations with multiple people at one time was hard to do, but ultimately  necessary since many people reached out at once. I was able to learn about completing tasks on time even while multitasking and still reaching the end goal efficiently. Another insight that I gained knowledge about is vulnerability while talking to a lot of people, since they were comfortable enough to be able to disclose personal information and problems that were going on in their life, which is something that is hard to share with somebody you don’t know. I’m grateful for the trust that they have in our nonprofit organization and have done what I can to maintain that connection.

Volunteering at Crisis Text Line has also taught me about compassion since we must show our support and empathy to people who are texting in, since you never know what somebody is going through on the other side of the screen. I’m grateful to have my supervisors with me during each volunteer shift since they were the ones who communicated with us efficiently and made sure that we had all of our necessities and concerns heard and met to ensure the validity of this platform. I strongly believe it’s also important to point out the openness that this organization has had with us volunteers since they’ve always been transparent in the work that we’re doing or the trainings that we have to complete while also offering workshops and resources to us as well. Our team has always done an incredibly good job at reaching out, and checking up on us counselors since they understand that the work that we’re doing is quite tough. I’m  beyond grateful for this opportunity and will continue to volunteer for this organization even after the semester is over. I’ve went ahead and attached an email below of my appreciation letter that I’ve sent to the organization to thank them for my gratitude and thankfulness for giving me this opportunity.