Access to behavioral health support should be timely, coordinated, and easy to navigate. Yet many people still face barriers that delay or prevent care. Helplines play a critical role in strengthening support systems. They provide immediate access to information, guidance, and connections to services for substance use and problem gambling.
What is a Helpline?
A helpline is a statewide resource for finding harm reduction, treatment, and recovery services for substance use, problem gambling, and other behavioral health issues. Like 211 or 311, Helplines are a public service available to all residents in an area regardless of their circumstances. This confidential resource connects consumers (meaning anyone who reaches out to us by phone, chat, or text) to caring, trained specialists who help assess the consumer’s needs and navigate the complexities of the treatment, recovery, and harm reduction system.
Unlike a crisis hotline that provides emergency counseling, helplines provide information and connect consumers with service providers. While helplines don’t solve underlying issues of access, such as lack of beds, inadequate services, or lack of insurance coverage , they ensure that people in the greatest need always have someone on their side, supporting them wherever they are on their path. With over 25 years of experience and a portfolio of five statewide helplines, HRiA has developed a unique, holistic, and scalable approach to screening and information services.
Helplines create connection
Helplines are central to HRiA’s behavioral health services and the broader harm reduction infrastructure. They are often a person’s first interaction with the treatment continuum, but they can also be a bridge service, providing connection and support at any point in a person’s journey to recovery. Helpline Screening and Information Specialists, or SIS, provide a critical link between a person in need and available services.
Recognizing the gravity of this responsibility, HRiA’s approach to helpline services is grounded in empathy and honors consumers’ lived experiences. We have a team of highly trained specialists, many of whom are in recovery and/or have loved ones with addiction. Each of them has the skills, knowledge, and expertise to help address and reduce barriers to access and motivate the consumer to follow through with seeking the services that are right for them. Many of our specialists are multilingual. We also offer on-call interpreters, translation, and services for those who are deaf/hard of hearing or visually impaired.
To ensure appropriate referrals, we maintain a sophisticated database of service providers throughout the state. Our data includes up-to-date information on provider services, hours of operation, accepted insurance, and other details that help consumers assess their options. We also support self-advocacy by educating consumers on their rights in the systems they are trying to access. Helpline specialists can be contacted by phone, chat, or text, with most lines available 24/7. In 2025, HRiA’s specialists answered over 80,000 calls, chats, and texts.
Helplines are an essential social service
HRiA’s Helplines are part of an essential social service structure, including 411, 911, and 988. We coordinate with local 988 providers across states to ensure they can easily direct consumers to our substance use and problem gambling helplines. With crisis line services more accessible than ever, we also work to increase awareness of Helpline services while simultaneously building out a strong, reliable technical infrastructure. This ensures we can easily handle increases in call volume, keeping Helpline access consistently available.
What happens when someone contacts an HRiA Helpline
Whether a consumer is seeking help for themselves or a loved one, specialists guide them through a process to best match them with appropriate services. The four elements to our comprehensive services are: Screening, Listening, Connecting, and Following Up.
- In Screening, a specialist performs a brief assessment to determine the consumer’s concern(s). In some states, we screen for both substance use and process disorders like problem gambling. This conversation is guided by (but not beholden to) a script so every Helpline interaction is thorough and tailored to the consumer’s needs.
- From the start of the call, specialists engage in active Listening, employing strategies such as motivational interviewing to elicit important details about the consumer and their needs and preferences.
- Next, a specialist will identify appropriate services through our sophisticated service provider database. After offering a menu of options, the specialist will Connect the consumer to the appropriate services, either through a direct “warm transfer” or by providing a list of options verbally or by email.
- Finally, specialists will ask the consumer if they would like a Follow-up call from one of our staff clinicians. Our staff checks that the consumer has received the services they need and provides additional support as needed.
We work hard to remove barriers to connecting with the helpline. And it still takes incredible courage to make a call and ask for help. Below, you can listen to caller feedback or visit our websites to hear stories from folks with lived experience.
Visit the links below to hear stories from people in recovery and the folks that support them.
- Illinois Helpline: Stories of Help
- Illinois Helpline: Harm Reduction
- Massachusetts Helpline: Stories of Hope
Helplines and other relevant projects at HRiA
Helpline services have been part of the fabric of HRiA for almost half of our nearly 70-year history. We now operate substance use helplines in three states, with two also addressing problem gambling. We also facilitate many complementary initiatives to improve access to services and reduce the negative impacts of substance use and problem gambling. Visit our websites for more information:
- MA Substance Use Helpline
- MA Problem Gambling Helpline
- IL Substance Use Helpline
- IL Problem Gambling Helpline
- VT Helplink
- HRiA’s Behavioral Health & Racial Equity (BeHERE) Initiative
Updated June 26, 2026.
