Monica Contois’ shift starts at 9:00 am every Thursday morning and she goes in prepared to give people what they need. She volunteers for the California AIDS/HIV Hotline at the offices of the SF AIDS Foundation in downtown San Francisco. She makes her way up to the room, it’s neatly set-up like a library computer lab, and sits down at her station, which is among several in the room.

She is ready to take calls the second she takes a seat and logs into her station. Sitting at her desk she is surrounded by a phone, a computer, and a small file of phone numbers and facts for easy access. She has everything within easy reach to deal with any sort of concern, curiosity, or crisis. “Any sort of scenario that you can imagine, and then some that you can’t, can happen at the hotline,” she says. When the phone rings, her voice has a natural giddiness to it that could put almost anyone at ease. A positive, upbeat tone is part of every conversation she has, but her voice is also serious enough to make people understand that she’s listening.

“If you think about it from the perspective of someone who’s really scared and think they may be at risk,” she explains, “they might have already called a couple of times, and at 8:59, they’re on speed dial.”

It can be a high maintenance situation working at the confidential and anonymous hotline. Contois receives a range of calls from the serious to the ridiculous, but she is there to give the person the information they need. She is a counselor of sorts, talking to people in distress or in fear of the disease, and approaches the caller with a delicate style called risk reduction. The idea behind risk reduction is that any reduction in risk that the caller wants to make is a positive one. As a general example, if a person is an IV drug-user and is having unprotected sex, if the caller is willing to at least use a condom during sex, it is a positive step.

Volunteers are never to tell a person what to do or how to live their life. Instead they try to get callers to tell them what they are willing to do and give them the necessary information, contacts, and advice that will help them accomplish the risk reduction.

“I don’t really get depressed,” says Contois, who has been volunteering at the hotline for over a year. “I get frustrated.

“You get people who are chronic callers, who have ridiculous situations and far out fears, people who abuse the hotline. Or you get repeat high-riskers*. The major emotion sometimes becomes anger, but the hotline is a safe space in people’s brain. It’s fantastic support. There is a lot of fear out there, but fear does not necessarily mean safe behavior,” she cautions.

According to the AIDS Hotline website, Contois, and other volunteers have to go through a rigorous and thorough 32-hour training period before they get to handle calls. To prepare for the conversations they are about to have with strangers about such a sensitive topic. The course involves 18 hours of classroom training and four hours of practice calls, with training topics ranging from risk assessment to sex roles and power to cultural competency.

Calls are logged, but not recorded, to get a general sense of what the attitude and needs are of any given time. Items like why the person called, what kind of information was needed, and what the person actually received is recorded to allow the funders know how the hotline is doing. Supervisors periodically call to check that the volunteers know what they’re doing as well.

Contois has received these but they don’t worry her in any way. She’s not in the mindset to detect whether people are checking up on her. She views the hotline as an opportunity for everyone.

Contois sums it up like this, “It’s important to know what you’re getting into. It’s probably not a good volunteer assignment for people who don’t like people, or can’t be bothered with their problems. But for a person who’s willing to accept that there’s all different kinds of people and that everyone has problems and want to see what they can do to help, then it’s great.”

*(those that have the necessary information, but keep engaging in dangerous activity)