Kujali [caring] Crisis Support Line

The Kujali Line began in 2021, and is funded through the Kujenga Family Wellness Project through the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

The crisis line is a free service provided to individuals who are seeking immediate support, guidance, and outreach for mental health and systems issues that they experience in their lives.

The Kujali line is geared to provide three pillars of support: Informal Counselling, Peer to Peer Mentoring, and Navigation Service. Learn more at: Kujali Line.

Informal Counselling:

• A counselor provides weekly or bi-weekly support for 60-90 minutes to address the immediate concern, and provide guidance to prevent further incidents and assist the caller to stabilize overall.
• The counselor receives support through weekly supervision and mentoring, and orientation training.  Counselors also have access to training and learning modules.

Peer to Peer Mentoring:

• Peer to peer mentoring is geared to support individuals who may feel socially and emotionally isolated, and may need a friendly person to speak with or visit them from time to time.
• The peer to peer support is provided by mentors or community partners who volunteer their time.
• The peer to peer relationship is monitored by the team to provide greater support, if needed.
• Sometimes are peers have the same role, for example, a seasoned mother supporting a new mom, or an older youth mentoring a younger teen.

Navigation Services:

• Navigation services are available to support families access the resources they may need in the community.
• This may be available to families so they do not have to call many business or organizations to access the support they need.
• The Kujali line operator may present the family with options of support available in the community.  They may also provide a “soft transfer”- introduce the family to the target resource or accompany the client on an appointment.  They may also provide some advocacy and outreach services if needed.

Kujali line individuals are welcome to contact the line at any time, and will remain on the caseload until the symptoms have reduced or the issues have been resolved.

Kujali line individuals are always able to contact the line again with the same or new issue.

The Kujali Line can assist individuals with:

• suicidal ideation, thoughts and feelings
• accessing emergency services
• addressing behaviour or mental health challenges in their family
• accessing information regarding intimate partner violence
• seeking resources and information to address family’s needs
• seeking guidance from another parent or mother
• learning to navigate trauma experiences
• accessing services offered through the Kujenga network.
• and so much more…

When the roots are deep, there is no reason to fear the wind- African Proverb

The Kujali line is geared to provide a supportive and caring guidance to individuals who access the line.  The operators use a trauma-informed, non-judgmental, and anti-Black racist lens to intervene and provide informal counselling.  The operators are often social work and child and youth workers in post-graduate and graduate programs, and engage in orientation training and weekly supervision groups.

The line operators are geared to follow individuals for a period of time as we understand that crisis and immediate responses can require both a triage and stabilization support.  Triage, where we can access immediate resources and prevent serious injury.  Stabilization is where we can ensure through soft transfers and short-term goals to address the immediate concerns.