Prince William plans to take a hands-on approach to mental health support.
William and Kate Middleton stepped out on Tuesday to celebrate six months since the launch of Shout, a service that offers free and confidential mental health support via text, and honor those staffing the service — which could soon include the royal dad himself.
“They are so lovely,” Nancy Lublin, co-founder and CEO of Crisis Text Line, tells PEOPLE. “It’s amazing how much he knows about the service.”
“And he reiterated that his plan is to train and become a crisis counselor,” she added. “When you’re really busy, and/or really famous, it’s very hard to volunteer. It what’s nice about this — it’s totally anonymous. He could be the guy at the end of the phone.”
Right now, Lublin says, William is “trying to figure out how to work the training into his schedule. But he’s quite sincere about it and is certainly knowledgable.”
Around 600 conversations take place through the service each day. Three-quarters of those who contact Shout are under 25, and the most frequent subjects raised in those conversations are suicide (37%), depression (36%), relationships (29%), anxiety (31%), isolation (19%) and self-harm (17%), the service says.
According to Lublin, Prince William was proud of the service being “one of those example of technology being good. We talk so much about technology being a source of pain.”
“And I said, ‘I like to describe it as a light saber — a light saber can be blue and the Jedis wield it for good things, or it can be red and be wielded for bad things,’ ” Lublin said. “The Duchess said she really liked that analogy.”
Lublin also shared that Kate and William, both 37, have visited the office multiple times “quietly behind the scenes” — and they’re not the only royal visitors. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have also been to the office and met with volunteers.
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The 24/7 text support service was launched earlier this year by Prince William and Kate alongside Prince Harry and Meghan, as it is a legacy of the royals’ successful Heads Together campaign. Since it kicked off in May, Shout has had 145,000 conversations.
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