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MORE THAN 381,000 calls, text and online messages were answered last year by the ISPCC’s Childine service.
According to the charity’s annual report, published today, volunteers had over 1,000 different phone conversations a day with children and young people all over Ireland.
This is a slight decrease on last year’s figure, but the helpline’s online and text options recorded a 33% increase in numbers. Over 11,000 new users registered for Childline’s online service for the first time in 2017.
In total, there were 381,911 contacts answered.
Issues pertaining to personal life (43%), abuse and welfare (15%) and relationships (10%) were most frequently raised by children and young people who engaged in two-way interaction contacts with the helpline service in 2017. Of the total number of two-way interaction phone calls answered by Childline in 2017, 72% came from males and 26% came from females.
Conversely, boys accounted for just 16% of those who engaged in two-way interaction contacts to the service by text and just 25% of those who chatted with Childline online, while girls made up 62% of text service users and 75% of online chat users respectively.
Childline answered 28,714 two-way interaction contacts in relation to abuse and welfare and an additional 3,122 calls in relation to substance use and abuse.
ISPCC CEO Grainia Long said the majority of contacts to the chairty helpline come when children, “regrettably, have no access to social workers and may have no-one else to call”.
“That remains the case today, as it was in 2017, and so we renew our calls for all-of-government consensus to prioritise child protection in this area.”
Long said the increase recorded this year in the number of contacts to our online service options is “indicative of the changing nature of children’s behaviour – as more and more children use online services, we need to ensure that we are meeting their needs”.
“We need to ensure that we can be there for every child and young person in Ireland over the next 30 years and beyond, through whichever means they choose to use to get in contact. For this reason, Childline, with the support of the Vodafone Ireland Foundation, is investing substantially in a new digital platform for Childline. We will be launching this new service in 2018 as part of our 30th birthday celebrations.”
Long said volunteers donated over 55,645 hours to the ISPCC to enable it to run services last year.
“We have, however, experienced some difficulty over the past year in recruiting volunteers to support the Childline service. We would warmly welcome interest from anyone who believes they could, with the support of our comprehensive and excellent training and development programme, play the hugely important role of listening to children who contact Childline,” she said.
ISPCC Childline costs €3.5 million to run every year and relies on public and corporate support for over 90% of this funding.
“We are very grateful, thus, for the generosity shown to ISPCC Childline by several companies in Ireland and by members of the public the length and breadth of the country who donate to our various campaigns run throughout the year.”
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Great idea – similar laws in other countries. Should give people the right amount of time in between jobs to find their feet.
Or, maybe we could introduce a system of universal healthcare so that healthcare is accessible and affordable for everyone, and not just those who can afford insurance!
A yrs health insurance every 18 months from now on then
@Misanthrope: I take a break of 13 weeks every year when it comes up for renewal and I do not lose cover or waiting time.
You are allowed 13 weeks to shop about
@ryan3939: I should too but couldn’t be arsed. Going to start doing it now.
@ryan3939: How can you not lose cover if you take that 13 week break ? Do you mean that the insurance company will honour anything within those 13 weeks even if you haven’t paid you renewal ?
@Nosmo King: No, the current system is that, if you cancel a policy from today, you have 13 weeks from today to take up a policy again, before being slapped with waiting periods as a new customer.
So, if you cancel today, and in a month you find out that you need surgery soon, you can call up, set up a policy from the date of the call, and continue on as if nothing happened.
you can also backdate that 13 weeks if you want, but you do have to pay for the time.. which is fine, if you needed cover during the 13 weeks, but if you didn’t, then just setting up from the date of the call is a good option.
@Mirabelle Stonegate: Thanks for that. I’m surprised that insurance companies of all businesses allow such an anomaly to exist.
@Nosmo King: I’d say they would say you knew about whatever illness it was and that it was a pre-existing condition so not covered, so basically you don’t have cover for the 13wks your not paying for
@Alison Sheppard: if you’ve completed your waiting periods your free and clear on that score.
@Nosmo King: Np, i spent 6 years in health insurance. This is something that was set out by the likes of the health inurance authority, in order to be fair to health insurance holders
That stamp duty is 444 per adult and 148 per child. 1184 for the typical 1 adult 2 kid family. Ridiculous really
@lavbeer: it’s disgraceful how much of it goes straight to the government. If the tax on the cost of the policies was reduced or removed, health insurance might be more affordable to most.
@lavbeer: but will the saving REALLY be passed on – it rarely is! Remains to be seen.
@cars: For the government health levy (this is the 444, rather than the separate lifetime community rating levy), most of that money actually goes to VHI.
The health levy goes into a pot, and is then divvied up between the insurers. VHI gets something like 80% of the pot, based on how many older (over 65) members they have, and the remainder is split between Laya and Irish Life Health.
@Mirabelle Stonegate: yea it does but it’s up to 50% of my premium which now generally is worthless.
@lavbeer: Totally agree. Its just under 50% for me, and the kicker is that i am with irish life health.. Yet i am still paying vhi a substantial amount, in essence.
The levy was introduced and set out this way, because of the fact that vhi was previously fulky government owned.
Nice to see some bits and pieces coming our way for a change.
What happens if you get sick during the break
@Dave barrett: you won’t have cover if your on a break, but means when you restart you won’t have waiting period again
Say what you will about our health service but our Health Insurance market is actually regulated quite fairly all things considered.
@ForeverFeel1ng: Is that why it goes up every year and is that why the insures never question a hospital bill which is mainly makey uppy in the first place? People in wards being charged for private rooms etc, that kind of regulation?
have your say