Irish Radio Producers & BCOs - Distressed Caller Protocols

You’re a radio presenter. You’re live on air with a caller and the conversation swings in a direction you and your team weren’t expecting. Your caller has harmed themselves. You’re a BCO lining up a call during a phone-in show. Your presenter is already on air and is introing the next topic. The person on the other end of your line is distressed, acutely so. They say they don’t want to be here anymore. What happens next in either of these scenarios is determined by multiple variables. Some are within your control, and some are not, but either way, there will be an impact on you, your team, your listeners, and most crucially, your caller. In that moment, and in the absence of protocols, you have to rely on your own quick thinking, risk-management, de-escalation, and listening skills, and still deliver a programme to air. And after it happens, you have to wonder, would the outcome have been different if someone less experienced took that call. This scenario and others like it are ones that have kept producers up at night. I know this because they’ve spoken about it in our workshops. At both regional and national level, there is a clear absence of protocols, decision trees, supports, specialist training and everything else required of a radio worker to handle high risk situations like the ones above, especially in a live setting. In 8 years of leading Shine Media Programme, these are the scenarios we haven’t had a simple answer for. Thanks to support from the HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention, I will be leading the development of a protocol for managing acutely distressed callers to live radio in Ireland. This will be in consultation with a panel of national and international experts from the world of suicide prevention and, most importantly, in consultation with frontline media workers who are faced with these calls and messages daily. How have your stations, your editors, your presenters or BCOs handled this? I want to hear from radio workers who have procedures in place that have worked. If they’re informal and loosely understood by your team, great – share the learning. If the opposite is true and the absence of protocols has caused harm, share that too. If you want to be involved, comment below, message me privately here or contact me at aomeara @ shine.ie. Everything will be treated confidentially. While I would like as much detail as possible from people who want to participate in interviews, surveys, or focus groups, please avoid sharing specific details of callers in the comments. Special thanks to the radio stations around Ireland opening their doors to me over the coming months, my Shine: Mental Health Support, Advocacy, Education colleague Tian Herbert who will be supporting me with this, and the many expert advisors from mental health and suicide prevention. Colm Byrne, Bernadette Prendergast, Teresa Hanratty, Learning Waves Skillnet, Dan Reidenberg, National Suicide Research Foundation (NSRF) #liveradio