Crisis Center Rock Star — Barbara Miras

July 11, 2017

Barbara is a Shift Supervisor with the Suicide Prevention Center at Didi Hirsch. Here’s what her nominator had to say:

Barbara has been with SPC for over 30 years! She started her tenure as a volunteer on the crisis line and shortly after became a Shift Supervisor. Barbara has held many positions at SPC including Program Coordinator along with On-Call Supervisor but LOVES the front line work of talking and helping those in needs and because of that she prefers to work on overnight shifts helping people in their time of crisis. Her colleagues look up to her and often find themselves while on a difficult call or chat “What would Barbara do?” This is just a small testament as to the quality of care and compassion that Barbara has for our callers and chat visitors. One of her colleagues said “Barbara is unfailingly compassionate, empathetic, kind, trustworthy, hardworking, and dedicated to both crisis line callers and coworkers. She is the gold standard by which we measure our work here at SPC. Barbara is a consummate teacher and mentor, someone who always goes above and beyond for those around her. She also has the best sense of humor and brings so much light to SPC”

Barbara sounds like an incredible person, so we just had to know more about her and her awesome work at SPC. Here’s what she had to say.


Lifeline: Why did you become involved with suicide prevention and crisis center work?

Barbara: I became involved with the Suicide Prevention Center in Los Angeles in 1984 after dealing with some family issues around suicide and mental illness, and after having the amazingly good fortune of taking two courses at UCLA in the early 80’s with Dr. Edwin Shneidman. He inspired me to volunteer, and the rest is history. I currently work several overnight shifts talking to crisis callers, as well as helping with trainings at Didi Hirsch.

L: Can you tell us about a positive experience you’ve had with someone while working in crisis center services?

B: Rather than single out any particular call, I just want to comment on the importance of keeping our callers company in their dark places when they call the lines. I feel my best calls over the years were the ones where I was willing to linger in particularly murky places with callers, and not rush them out of the shadows. I feel honored to accompany callers on that part of their journey as they start to find light in the darkness. It took a few years to truly be comfortable with the process. Now I embrace it!

L: Anything else?

B: I’ve attached a selfie of me and Zane, one of my two cats. It’s no secret around the crisis line that I’m a cat person! I have two children, but I’m an empty-nester so the kitties are my feline babies.

I’m interested in exploring how people’s pets can be their biggest (and sometimes only) buffer. I try to always ask callers if they have animals. Sometimes this leads to an important conversation about loss if they had a beloved pet who died. Sometimes it turns out that a pet (even a small one like a fish or hamster) is keeping someone alive because they feel needed and loved. I encourage everyone to start asking this question more. And don’t forget how wonderful pets are for our own self-care!


Thank you, Barbara, for all of your life-saving work, and from the entire Lifeline Network, we’d like to say, “Rock on!”


Lifeline Crisis Centers

Written by

Messages from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and Its Network of Crisis Centers

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