NCJ Number
176247
Journal
Youth Studies Australia Volume: 17 Issue: 4 Dated: December 1998 Pages: 17-22
Date Published
1998
Length
6 pages
Annotation
The Kids Help Line (KHL) has been providing a national telephone counseling service for Australian children between 5 and 18 years of age since 1993, and an average of 25,000 calls from children and young people are made to the service each week.
Abstract
The KHL is a single-site service based on Milton, Brisbane, and is a nondenominational service funded by BoysTown Family Care. The KHL believes confidentiality is a critical consideration for its client group. Young people exercise control of confidentiality by choosing to remain anonymous and in 60 percent of calls decline to given even non-identifying information. The two organizational values underpinning how the KHL operates are child-centered practice and empowerment. The KHL follows five principles that allow counselors to operationalize the two organizational values: (1) calls are confidential and anonymous; (2) callers are treated with respect; (3) callers are free to choose the gender of the counselor to whom they speak; (4) callers are able to access the same counselor if they wish to call back; and (5) callers are encouraged to give feedback about the KHL and the service they receive. The KHL seeks to promote the capacity of young people to manage their own lives, and the service believes suicide prevention is a shared responsibility for all community members. Since March 1991, 6,429 young people have telephoned specifically about suicide. Each year, the KHL responds to about 1,100 suicide-related calls from young people. The average suicide call runs 27 minutes in length, in contrast to an average of 11 minutes for all other calls, and most suicide-related calls are made by females (72 percent). Most females with suicide-related issues telephone between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m., while most males with suicide-related issues telephone between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. While males and females make similar proportions of calls to seek suicide-related information and to discuss their suicidal thoughts, differences are apparent in other suicide-related behaviors. Females tend to seek help about suicide-related issues at an earlier age than males. Factors associated with suicide-related calls include physical and sexual child abuse and the family environment. Data obtained by the KHL demonstrate the importance of families to young people, the need to individualize young people, the importance of promoting help- seeking behaviors, the need to enhance coping skills, and the importance of assessing the community's capacity to respond to child protection issues. 10 references and 2 tables