Main aim of the charity

Support for children - The Childline service, which operates from units across the country, is provided by a team of volunteers and staff who work to ensure children have somewhere to turn. Childline is funded predominantly through donations – fundraising to keep Childline listening As part of work with the National Office for Suicide Prevention, the ISPCC makes a crisis line available to all children and young people within a local community if / when a tragedy or crisis occurs. This service is available on a 24-hour basis for an agreed time period to offer support to the school and community within the directly-affected area.

How the employee got involved and why

I started with Childline in October 2019, so after extensive training, shadowing and supervised sessions/calls I went live on the phones/emails/texts in June 2020. I am relatively new but feel like part of an important team and the sense of fulfillment is truly rewarding. I think I have been interested in doing something like this for a long time, I completed a certificate in counselling a number of years ago but was never brave enough to pursue it . My daughter lost a close friend through suicide a few years ago and through rearing my own children I just knew that this was an area I wanted to support. It is difficult as a parent to get support for the well-being of children especially in today's world and Childline is an excellect FREE service, I feel lucky to be involved.

What work does the employee do for charity?

Childline is the national listening service for children and young people in Ireland, and is a confidential service run by the ISPCC (Irish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children) , by telephone, text and online. Childline answers over 300,000 contacts every year by phone, text and web chat. Childline is one of the ISPCC’s suite of services for children and is open 365 days a year. Our purpose is to listen to children, empower them, strengthen their resilience and enable them to live their best possible lives. I am a call facilitator with Childline and work every Saturday morning at their call center in Drogheda.