Surprise Inspections of Suicide Crisis Line Ordered by County

Investigators with the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department have been ordered to conduct surprise inspections at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, which has been rocked by allegations of mismanagement and a walkout by half of its crisis-line counselors.

Mental health officials hope to determine whether the 24-hour suicide prevention crisis line is functioning properly. The county can withdraw the center’s emergency crisis-line grant, which totaled nearly $130,000 this year, if they decide that the telephone service is inadequate.

An investigator has already paid one visit to the center, and Dr. R. W. Burgoyne, Mental Health Department director, said the inspections will continue indefinitely.

“We have had little problem with their performance so far,” he said. “But we will want to know if things degenerate.”

Nothing to Fear

The Suicide Prevention Center receives more than 50% of its crisis-line funding from the county, according to Sheila Halfon, the center’s director. Halfon said that she is aware of the county’s stepped-up inspection order, but added that the center has nothing to fear because supervisors and others have been filling in for the 40 counselors who are off the job.

Halfon said the center is also training replacement crisis-line operators.

“If we were not keeping the lines open, they would have the right to withdraw our funds,” Halfon said. “But the lines are being manned. We handled more than 1,000 calls this month.”

The stepped-up inspection order came from the Board of Supervisors, which expressed concern over the level of services at the center after the walkout by telephone counselors earlier this month. Under the supervisors’ order, county administrative officials will also offer to serve as mediators in talks between board members and disgruntled employees.

Burgoyne said that the center can reject the offer.

“We have offered our help,” he said. “But we can’t force ourselves on them. It’s an internal problem for them.”

The Suicide Prevention Center, which used to be known as the nation’s foremost telephone crisis-intervention agency, has been plagued by internal bickering and financial problems recently.

Two of the center’s founders, Dr. Robert E. Litman and Norman L. Farberow, have accused the board of directors of squandering the agency’s resources. Telephone counselors--many of them volunteers--walked off their jobs and demanded changes in management after the board announced that it was firing a popular supervisor as part of a budget cutback plan.

The board was expected to discuss the center’s mounting problems at its monthly meeting Wednesday but lacked a quorum. It will try to meet again next month. Center Chairman Raphael Chakin said he is “very anxious” to resolve the issues facing the agency.

“We are just hoping that the whole situation will stabilize,” he said.

Litman, however, said there is no sign of an end to the center’s problems because the board refuses to confront them.