This summary describes the growth of the Contra Costa Crisis & Suicide Intervention Service in California from a telephone hotline which took 139 calls in 1963 to a major agency which answered over 30,000 calls in 1986. Today it has a volunteer auxilliary, a grief counselling program which has been extended to survivors of any traumatic death, a community education program directed at schools, employment support services, & a jail counselling program. (GW)