211 is a hotline for your health

Elia Powers

There’s a new three-digit phone number in town.

Joining the emergency number 911 and the information directory

number 411 is the new 211, a hotline dedicated to providing Orange

County residents with health and human-services information.

Today marks the official launch of the 24-hour phone line, which

offers confidential service and multilingual operators.

Info Link Orange County, a Costa Mesa-based nonprofit that has

provided health agency referrals since 1988, has been chosen to staff

the hotline.

About 2,500 community-based agencies are in the organization’s

database, said Angie Baur, executive director of Info Link Orange

County.

During a hotline launch party Thursday at the Costa Mesa

Neighborhood Community Center, Baur listed examples of groups she

hopes will use the hotline: laborers who have been recently laid off,

single mothers whose children are in distress and medical

professionals who are looking to provide patients with support-group

contacts.

“People often don’t know where to turn for help with a personal

crisis,” Baur said. “We’ve been providing referrals for years, and

211 is going to be a more visible number.”

Baur said she expects more than 40,000 calls in the first year,

which would be a 50% increase. Info Link is especially targeting

teenagers and young adults, she said.

In anticipation of the increasing volume, the agency has added

staff and is still looking to hire more operators.

As Info Link Orange County’s lead information and referral

specialist, it’s Debbie Groendal’s job to train new staff members.

Groendal said the new hotline will help “eliminate the maze of

phone numbers.”

Info Link Orange County is also partnering with county law

enforcement officers in an effort to streamline phone calls coming

into the hotlines. Orange County Assistant Sheriff Jo Ann Galisky,

said the new number will help her agency increase efficiency.

“211 will really free up our lines,” Galisky said . “When people

call us for nonemergency situations, it jeopardizes public safety.”

The Orange County launch of 211 coincides with similar events

across Southern California.

Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Riverside counties are also

offering the phone service beginning this summer.

Ventura County was the first in the region to start the service --

its hotline went into service in February.

The 211 hotline serves people in 31 states and the District of

Columbia. Costa Mesa is one of about 150 call centers set up across

the country.

The phone line is funded by public and private money. Among those

instrumental in the hotline is United Way of America, which in 2000

helped convince the Federal Communications Commission to assign 211

for health and human-services referrals.

Partner agencies include Children’s Home Society, Dayle McIntosh

Center, Orange County Office of Aging, Volunteer Center Orange

County, and Children and Families Commission of Orange County.