[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 227 (Monday, November 28, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 71326-71327]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-23366]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for OMB 
Review; Comment Request

    Periodically, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services 
Administration (SAMHSA) will publish a summary of information 
collection requests under OMB review, in compliance with the Paperwork 
Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). To request a copy of these 
documents, call the SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer on (240) 276-1243.

Project: Call Monitoring of National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Form--
NEW

    The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's 
(SAMHSA), Center for Mental Health Services has funded a National 
Suicide Prevention Lifeline Network, consisting of a single toll-free 
telephone number that routes calls from anywhere in the United States 
to a network of local crisis centers. In turn, the local centers link 
callers to local emergency, mental health, and social service 
resources.
    To ensure quality, the vast majority of crisis centers conduct on-
site monitoring of selected calls by supervisors or trainers using 
unobtrusive listening devices. To monitor the quality of calls and to 
inform the development of training for networked crisis centers, the 
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline propose to remotely monitor calls 
routed to seven crisis centers during the shifts of consenting staff. 
The procedure will be anonymous, in that neither staff nor callers will 
be identified on the Call Monitoring Form. The monitor, a trained 
crisis worker, will code the type of problem presented by the caller, 
the elements of a suicide risk assessment that are completed by the 
crisis worker, as well as what action plan is developed with and/or 
what referral(s) are provided to the caller. No centers will be 
identified in reports.
    During the shifts of consenting crisis staff, a recording will 
inform callers that some calls may be monitored for quality assurance 
purposes. Previous comparisons of matched centers that did and did not 
play the recording found no difference in hang-up rates before the 
calls were answered or within the first 15 seconds of the calls.
    The seven centers to be monitored will be selected based on the 
geographic region(s) they serve. Once a center has

[[Page 71327]]

agreed to participate, the crisis workers will be provided an Informed 
Consent Form describing the purpose and procedures of the monitoring 
process and inviting them to participate. The Form also informs workers 
that they are free to participate or not, that they may withdraw their 
acceptance to participate at any time, and that if they choose not to 
participate, no calls during their shift will be monitored.
    A total of 180 calls will be monitored during the first 5-month 
period. One year later, an additional 360 calls will be monitored, 
yielding a total of 540 monitored calls.
    The estimated annual response burden to collect this information is 
as follows:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                    Burden per
                   Instrument                        Number of     Responses per     response      Total burden
                                                    respondents     respondent        (Hrs).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Informed Consent Form...........................             360               1             .07              26
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Call                      6              60             .33             238
 Monitoring Form................................
                                                 -----------------
    Totals......................................             366  ..............  ..............             264
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    Written comments and recommendations concerning the proposed 
information collection should be sent by December 28, 2005 to: SAMHSA 
Desk Officer, Human Resources and Housing Branch, Office of Management 
and Budget, New Executive Office Building, Room 10235, Washington, DC 
20503; due to potential delays in OMB's receipt and processing of mail 
sent through the U.S. Postal Service, respondents are encouraged to 
submit comments by fax to: 202-395-6974.

    Dated: November 21, 2005.
Anna Marsh,
Director, Office of Program Services.
[FR Doc. 05-23366 Filed 11-25-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4162-20-M