Terms and Conditions

What is Crisis Live Chat? A free service provided by CMHA Thunder Bay to residents of Thunder Bay and surrounding area that provides live, one-on-one crisis intervention, risk assessment, de-escalation or information referrals with a trained Crisis Worker over the Internet using a service that works just like instant messaging. You will go into a private session with a Crisis Worker who is trained and you will communicate live, by typing messages back and forth.

Who should use CMHA Thunder Bay Crisis Live Chat?
1. Individuals in crisis
2. Partners, family members or friends of someone in crisis
3. Individuals or spouses, family members, or friends of someone needing a referral or resource

If you need immediate emergency assistance, you should call 911, CMHA Thunder Bay Crisis Response Services (City of Thunder Bay 807-346-8282/ District of Thunder Bay 1-888-269-3100/Kenora Rainy River District 1-866-888-8988 ), or your local Community Mental Health Office.

CMHA Thunder Bay Crisis Live Chat services may be limited or blocked for users who engage in inappropriate language, vulgarity, harassment, or other inappropriate uses of services.

Privacy and Security
We take your privacy and security very seriously. Security controls, including encryption and authentication, are in place to ensure the protection of your information. Any information provided by you or collected on you will only be shared or disclosed in accordance the Personal Health Information Protection Act. Contractors may act on behalf of CMHA Thunder Bay in administering Crisis Live Chat. Any contractor used will be subject to the same legal requirements and responsibilities for protecting the privacy and security of your information as CMHA Thunder Bay.

Automatically Collected and Stored Information
If you do nothing during your visit but log onto the website, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. Ie. the internet domain, the type of browser or operating system used to access site, date and time you accessed the site. This information is used to help make the site more useful to visitors, to learn about the number of visitors to the site, and the types of technology visitors use. We do not automatically track or record personally-identifiable information about website visitors.

Voluntarily Provided Information by the Visitor
We do not collect personally identifiable information unless you voluntarily provide it to us when you sign-in to Crisis Live Chat. If you provide your telephone number or other information for contact or other use by the Crisis Worker, this information will be stored in your client health record at CMHA Thunder Bay.

AGREEMENT:
By entering this site, you expressly acknowledge and agree that neither CMHA Thunder Bay nor any of its contractors, agents, or representatives are responsible for any personal information which you may enter over the Internet during transmission. Despite our efforts to protect your information some level of risk when communicating over the Internet is always present.
Because your participation in Crisis Live Chat is not medical care or treatment, neither CMHA Thunder Bay nor any of its contractors, agents, or representatives are responsible for any decisions or results of the decisions that you make while, as a result of, or after participating in Crisis Live Chat. This includes whether you choose to seek or not seek professional medical or psychiatric care, or to modify or terminate specific treatment that you currently are receiving based on the information provided by this service. If the Crisis Worker concludes that you are at imminent danger of harming yourself or others, the Crisis Worker will request your contact information (i.e. telephone number and/or address) so they can attempt to provide you with additional assistance, including sending local emergency services to you. As a visitor, you may refuse to provide this information If however, the Crisis Worker still believes you are at imminent danger of harming yourself or others, they may use other information available to them (e.g. your IP address) to help local emergency personnel locate you to provide you with further assistance.

CMHA Thunder Bay makes no guarantee that the website will be free of viruses, spyware, or other destructive material, and is not liable for any damage to any hardware or software device, or for any inconvenience or difficulty, caused by use of this website.

Your sole remedy against CMHA Thunder Bay Crisis Live Chat or any of its contractors, agents, or representatives for dissatisfaction with the website or any content thereon is to stop using the website.

Access to Crisis Live Chat and its resources is free to all.