Help Struggling Children Contact Childline

Every year, Childline receives hundreds of thousands of calls from vulnerable young people, who just need someone to talk to.

Though they’re available 24 hours a day, it’s difficult to respond to every young person.

Last year, the helpline received 800,000 calls or messages, most commonly during the evening and overnight, but the service could only respond to every 3 out of 4 children, leaving some waiting in queues and giving up.

It’s clear that something needs to change, and that’s why the Chronicle has teamed up with the NSPCC to launch ‘Light Up Christmas for Children,’ a nationwide campaign to raise money for Childline, and help resolve this issue.

Additional services will cost more than half a million pounds in total, but by donating just £4 you could pay for a counsellor to answer a call and help Childline towards their goal of supporting tens of thousands more children.

John Cameron, head of helplines at the NSPCC, said:

Childline is there for children and teenagers day and night. However, developments in technology have meant that young people are now communicating with us in very different ways which is placing the service under real pressure.

In particular we are getting more calls later in the evening and many more contacts online, with these counselling sessions taking twice as long as those conducted over the phone.

We are really excited that a great campaigning newspaper like the Chronicle is backing our efforts to get to young people in need of our help more quickly.

We would also urge children and teenagers to keep contacting us and to always try and wait until a counsellor becomes available.

You can donate £4 by texting ‘NSPCC 4’ to 70744 or visiting nspcc.org.uk/chronicle. Text costs include your donation of £4 plus your standard network rate. The NSPCC will receive 100% of your donation.