European Prince Lends a Hand to Wounded U.S. Soldiers:

Prince Leopold d’Arenberg (right, rear) poses in front of the headquarters for the new Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline with Colonel Richard J. McNorton (left, rear), the hotline’s Executive Officer, and CrisisLink’s Executive Director Carol Loftur-Thun (right, front) and Mary Azoy (left, front), CrisisLink’s Director of Community Education and Crisis Response.

With donations provided by Prince Leopold d’Arenberg of Belgium, Azalea Charities and CrisisLink have formed a partnership to assist in the training of Call Center Representatives for the U.S. Army’s new Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline (1-800-984-8523.) The purpose of this hotline, which opened on March 19th, is two-fold: to offer wounded, injured, and ill Soldiers and their family members a way to share concerns on the quality of patient care, and to provide senior Army leaders with visibility on medically-related issues so they can properly allocate resources to better serve Soldiers and families. The Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

News of Prince d’Arenberg’s generous support has been welcomed with enthusiasm by Cathy Jackman of the Army’s Well Being Liaison Office, who remarked that the training would keep Call Center Representatives “in peak condition to provide the absolute best link” to the services that wounded Soldiers and their families need.

Prince d’Arenberg’s interest in the development of the Wounded Soldier and Family Hotline stems from the liberation by an American Lieutenant of his mother and her sisters from a Nazi death camp in 1945. The Prince’s support of the “Aid for Wounded Soldiers” program operated by Azalea Charities, has enabled this Northern Virginia-based regional non-profit organization to fund CrisisLink’s development and delivery of a training program for staff members of the newly created hotline. CrisisLink, a nonprofit social service organization based in Arlington, has been providing trainings in suicide prevention, communication skills and stress management for several branches of the military within the past few years. Additional projects supported by Azalea Charities’ “Aid for Wounded Soldiers” program include: the Fisher Houses rehabilitation and the Family Assistance Center, both at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, as well as other military medical and rehabilitation centers worldwide. For more information about Azalea Charities, please visit www.azaleacharities.org.

Since 1969, CrisisLink has provided a free, confidential, 24-hour crisis, suicide and referral hotline. CrisisLink also offers community education and training, outreach and suicide prevention for youth, certified Crisis Response Teams, the Tara Sirmans Survivor HOPE program for those impacted by suicide, and CareRing, a free, daily telephone outreach program for seniors, disabled, and homebound individuals. CrisisLink won the first ever national Crisis Center Award for Excellence in 2003.

For more information, call CrisisLink at (703) 527-6603.