Non-profit modernizes its volunteer training, enhancing peer support while protecting caller privacy

San Francisco, Calif. — Fireside Project, the nation’s foremost provider of compassionate, accessible, and culturally responsive psychedelic peer support services, is announcing an update to its volunteer and staff training practices and a resulting change to its privacy policy for callers to its Psychedelic Support Line. 

To continue to improve the quality of support provided to a growing number of callers, and to improve the organization’s safety protocols, Fireside Project volunteers and staff will be trained using anonymized recordings and transcripts of helpline conversations. 

Many helplines record calls, including the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (988), 911, the Veterans’ Crisis Line, the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the Substance Abuse and National Mental Health Administration’s (SAMSHA) National Helpline, and California’s Peer-Run Warmline. With the changes announced today, Fireside Project will go above and beyond other hotlines’ privacy practices by anonymizing call recordings using the latest artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

AI-assisted software will perform the anonymization by removing personal identifying information (PII) and deleting it before it is saved. As another layer of privacy protection, Fireside Project’s data will never be used to train the AI’s Large Language Model (LLM). Fireside Project will keep the anonymized conversations strictly confidential and will not share them outside the organization unless explicitly ordered to do so by a judge. 

“The cutting-edge AI software works by identifying PII based on the words themselves as well as the context in which those words appear in conversations. Any PII is permanently deleted. What remains are anonymized conversations, which we will use to improve our training and quality of service,” explained Wesley Bellanca, Fireside Project Technical Lead. “To honor our callers’ privacy and the trust our callers place in us, no names, locations, full phone numbers, or other PII will be saved. Plus, we give everyone the option to permanently delete their anonymized recording in our post-call survey.”

“Our volunteers are a diverse, well-trained, and dedicated group of responders who have helped tens of thousands of callers since Fireside Project’s inception,” said Fireside Project Founder and Executive Director Joshua White. “Our commitment is to continuously improve the quality of support we provide our callers. Leveraging anonymized conversations to train our staff and volunteers is a key part of how we can fulfill that promise. As always, Fireside Project will continue to protect the privacy of our callers, and ensure the security and integrity of these deeply personal conversations.”

A recent multi-site study co-authored by Fireside Project and entitled, “Reducing the Harms of Nonclinical Psychedelics Use Through a Peer-Support Telephone Helpline,” confirmed the efficacy of the psychedelic peer support helpline in harm reduction efforts that directly lead to a reduction in emergency services calls, among other outcomes. 

This latest revision to the organization’s training practices reinforces Fireside Project’s commitment to ensure that every person in the midst of a psychedelic experience or processing a past one has access to high-quality peer support and robust harm reduction services.

About Fireside Project
Fireside Project is a non-profit organization that operates the Psychedelic Peer Support Line, providing free, confidential support by mobile app, phone, and text message to people who are in the midst of psychedelic experiences or processing past psychedelic experiences, whether those experiences occurred a day or a decade ago. Fireside Project has received national media attention in such publications asRolling Stone,Forbes,Esquire,Mashable, and more. Fireside Project can be reached by phone and text at 62-FIRESIDE (623-473-7433) and through its mobile app, which isavailable on iPhone and Android.

DATE: MAY 8, 2024

CONTACT: Brad Burge, Integration Communications, brad@integrationcommunications.org