Bush Administartion To Remove Funding for The Hopeline :(

I’m not a petition-kinda girl, and I don’t take on that many causes, but as someone who’s worked with troubled teens before, I know that saving Hopeline is VERY IMPORTANT. So please read the following blurb, taken from PunkNew.org, then visit the site to figure out (very simple) ways you can show your support.

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1-800-SUICIDE, the non-profit suicide hotline supported by the Take Action Tour is in danger of losing all federal funding. The organization has to date, accepted calls from more than two million individuals. At the heart of the issue is the confidentiality of callers; currently, the organization maintains a strict privacy policy while the government is seeking to obtain these records.

Substance Abuse & Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA), a division of the federal government’s Health & Human Services, has decided to create their own government-run system because that the management of 1-800-SUICIDE has refused to turn over the control of the National Hopeline Network to the government.

This is not the first attempt of the administration to influence the hotline, which earlier tried to force the charity to remove all references to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals from a recent conference as well as add session on “faith-based” suicide prevention.

The government has also not lived up to previous comittments to the charity to provide more than $266,000. Conversely, both Mike Park’s Plea for Peace and Louis Posen’s Take Action Tour have privately raised that amount.

For more information please visit Save1800suicide.org.