The Listening Ear

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The Listening Ear is a crisis Intervention Center located in East Lansing, Michigan. It is the oldest all volunteer crisis center operating in the United States. The Listening Ear Crisis Intervention Center has been open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year since July 15, 1969. It provides free and confidential service for telephone and walk-in clients in crisis and is staffed entirely by volunteers. The volunteers receive over 60 hours of training in order to become part of the staff. The Listening Ear also provides free sexual assault counseling and advocacy to survivors of sexual assault and their significant others. Since its inception in 1969, the center has served more than 300,000 phone and walk-in clients.

[edit] History

The Listening Ear opened its doors at 547 1/2 East Grand River on July 15, 1969. The first training session was designed by Dr. Dozier Thornton, a psychology professor from Michigan State University. The program ran for 40 hours (this quickly grew into the 60+ hour training of today).

The founders decided that they would stay open if they received at least 100 calls each month for the first three months. They received more than 1500. The annual operating budget was about $6000.

In July 1976, The Rape Counseling program, (the forerunner of the Sexual Assault Counseling program), was established, providing free, short-term counseling to rape survivors as well as advocacy and community education.

On April 13, 1990, The Listening Ear was named the 113th of 1000 Points of Light for its "Outstanding efforts in behalf of [the] community" by President George H. W. Bush.