800,000 Irish Calls To Childline

Biggins

I heard this mentioned last night by Vincent Brown on TV3 but waited till there was a link available to back it up. 800,000 Irish calls to Childline made last year - thats absolutely staggering in this day and age.
Holy hell, come on legislators, let start putting the fear of long term prison sentencing back into the scumbags that are out there.

Absolute madness.

CHILDREN in despair made a staggering 800,000 calls to the ISPCC’s Childline last year, a surge of almost 25% from the previous year.
The unprecedented level of demand for the voluntary listening service was far more than the organisation could cope with and some 300,000 calls – more than one in three of all those made – went unanswered.

Irish Examiner
Read more: Here.

2ygb4cmqetsjhx

The stats are skewed. Their number is a free phone number open 24 hours a day. I call them when I'm pissed just for something to do.

IvyTheTerrible

Sasha Many Skull wrote: »

The stats are skewed. Their number is a free phone number open 24 hours a day. I call them when I'm pissed just for something to do.

Nice use of an overstretched service...:rolleyes:

Biggins

Sasha Many Skull wrote: »

The stats are skewed. Their number is a free phone number open 24 hours a day. I call them when I'm pissed just for something to do.

1. Its not stats that are just assessed or guessed at - its LOGGED calls.
2. Your lucky calls by you are not traceable ...O' wait! :rolleyes:

2ygb4cmqetsjhx

They don't care. They never trace calls and they are also not allowed to terminate a call. So sometimes I let them listen to me sleep and puke too.

Biggins

Sasha Many Skull wrote: »

They don't care. They never trace calls and they are also not allowed to terminate a call. So sometimes I let them listen to me sleep and puke too.

Go away troll.

My name is URL

Sasha Many Skull wrote: »

The stats are skewed. Their number is a free phone number open 24 hours a day. I call them when I'm pissed just for something to do.

Sasha Many Skull - Hallo.. I'm very upset.. My mam said if I don't find a job and stop drinking that I have to move out of the basement.. What should I do?

Childline - An Hero

Stephentlig

Shocking.....you've certainly given me more to pray about today.

Longer jail sentences are needed for sure.

Pax Christi
Stephen

2ygb4cmqetsjhx

Biggins wrote: »

Go away troll.

Yeah yeah so I made the bit up about sleeping and puking. But they never hang up! I am not trolling!

Jimmy Bottlehead

Sasha Many Skull wrote: »

They don't care. They never trace calls and they are also not allowed to terminate a call. So sometimes I let them listen to me sleep and puke too.

Why don't you cop yourself on? I volunteer, and the last thing that that service needs is some drunk pr1ck ringing up and taking up time that kids need. I hope you realise for every call you make, you're potentially stopping a young child getting to talk to someone - someone that could get them help from violence, abuse, or talk them out of commiting suicide.

I'm all for humour in AH but that's just complete BS. Hope your conscience rests easy man, mine wouldn't.

Jordonvito

at least a quater of the calls are prank calls

Kiera

I wonder how many of them are real (i'm sure it is still quite high) and not some little D4 twit moaning that Daddy didnt get them a car for their sweet 16.

Biggins

Jimmy Bottlehead wrote: »

Why don't you cop yourself on? I volunteer, and the last thing that that service needs is some drunk pr1ck ringing up and taking up time that kids need. I hope you realise for every call you make, you're potentially stopping a young child getting to talk to someone - someone that could get them help from violence, abuse, or talk them out of commiting suicide.

I'm all for humour in AH but that's just complete BS. Hope your conscience rests easy man, mine wouldn't.

300,00 calls go unanswered, I wonder to is aiding the problem and where do we start to look for them? :rolleyes:

TheZohanS

Sasha Many Skull wrote: »

Yeah yeah so I made the bit up about sleeping and puking. But they never hang up! I am not trolling!

You're finished with this thread, don't post in it again.

WindSock

No you're right, they never hang up and don't trace the calls. It's lovely of them to do that so knobjockeys can take advantage of this. At least it makes you aware that they are confidential and do listen for when you really need them. Lets hope another knobjockey isn't hogging the line for when you do though.

Gone Drinking

Heard a guy on the radio saying alot of the calls were issues with relationships, dealing with social abilities and that sort of stuff.

Don't jump into this thread and assume there's 600,000 children being beaten in Ireland.

Childline answers other calls aswell (and fair play to them and those who volunteer)

WindSock

Kiera wrote: »

I wonder how many of them are real (i'm sure it is still quite high) and not some little D4 twit moaning that Daddy didnt get them a car for their sweet 16.

The service is provided for any child that needs to talk about anything. It's not just for those suffering from violence/abuse/bullying etc. If they have had a rough day or didn't get the right coloured Uggs, the volunteers are there to listen, no matter what. It's just a shame that there are some people who really need to use the service can't get through.

Biggins

Gone Drinking wrote: »

Heard a guy on the radio saying alot of the calls were issues with relationships, dealing with social abilities and that sort of stuff.
Don't jump into this thread and assume there's 600,000 children being beaten in Ireland.
Childline answers other calls as well (and fair play to them and those who volunteer)

Very true.
Either way, its distressed people, maybe my own neighbour behind their curtain that is seeking desperate help.
Sad that the numbers in this day and age are so high. Its not good at all and makes me just want to do more.

Wazdakka

I'm taking this as a good thing.

I really don't think it's a statistic showing an increase of abusive situations requireing help.

I think it's a statistic showing an increase in the realisation of children that there is somewhere they can go to about it.

Biggins

Wazdakka wrote: »

...I think it's a statistic showing an increase in the realisation of children that there is somewhere they can go to about it.

Good point. I suppose that is a slight good way to also look at the numbers.
Small mercies but a good one.

Assuming that all of a sudden we haven't got a upsurge in kids alone being abused, and such things have been going on at what could be called a (sad) somewhat average rate, its depressing thinking that before the availability of these lines, there really was much lesser of such people in equal numbers in pain, able to seek help in the past.

The_Minister

Biggins wrote: »

Very true.
Either way, its distressed people, maybe my own neighbour behind their curtain that is seeking desperate help.
Sad that the numbers in this day and age are so high. Its not good at all and makes me just want to do more.

Just to clarify, it isn't 800,000 individuals needing help.
There could be people who call every day, or most days.

Without a breakdown on the reasons that people are calling, 800,000 doesn't really tell us much.

Hagar

Biggins wrote: »

800,000 Irish calls to Childline made last year - thats absolutely staggering in this day and age.

That's a logged call every 45 seconds day-in day-out for a whole year. Those stats can't be correct. I don't think Childline can handle that number of calls.
800,000 ? How many children are in the country? If it's the same kids ringing back time after time what's the point in the service?


Edit - I see from the link 300,000 went unanswered so they are not all logged calls

Biggins

The_Minister wrote: »

Just to clarify, it isn't 800,000 individuals needing help.
There could be people who call every day, or most days.
Without a breakdown on the reasons that people are calling, 800,000 doesn't really tell us much.

True. Sadly it does tell us that this one precious location of possible help, is severely strained.

WindSock

Childline keep data on what the reason for the call is, as far as I know and the figures get published.

Super-Rush

You also have to wonder what percentage of that 800,000 are trolls ringing for lulz.

The_Minister

I remember a friend telling me he did a prank on them.

Childline Operator: Hello, welcome to Childline...

Friend: Hello, Paddy?

CO: No sir, this is childline.

Friend: But, I pressed redial to get Paddy...**** it, I'll kill him!

*Roars* Danial!!

/Slams down phone.

Max Power1

super-rush wrote: »

You also have to wonder what percentage of that 800,000 are trolls ringing for lulz.

what a ridiculos waste of a worthy organisations valuable time and resources. There was one such idiot on thread already

Biggins

super-rush wrote: »

You also have to wonder what percentage of that 800,000 are trolls ringing for lulz.

Same percentage roughly I suspect that ring the Gardi - Firemen - Ambulance services in hoax calls.
Same percentage of people I suspect that think its fun to throw away the life buoys that are found along side rivers and lakes.
What sad people indeed.

WindSock

super-rush wrote: »

You also have to wonder what percentage of that 800,000 are trolls ringing for lulz.

The thing with that is, a lot of them call to 'test' the service. They may call for a laugh at first on their own or with friends, then when they realise 'hey they actually do listen' then they may call back with a bit more confidence the next time for whatever reason. They know that the service is there for them.

Super-Rush

WindSock wrote: »

The thing with that is, a lot of them call to 'test' the service. They may call for a laugh at first on their own or with friends, then when they realise 'hey they actually do listen' then they may call back with a bit more confidence the next time for whatever reason. They know that the service is there for them.

I'd hope so. I find it sad that we seem to be on this never ending cycle of children being alienated and neglected by their peers/family/society.

Hagar

Just a thought, do calls to Childline show up on a detailed phone bill?

WindSock

No

Hagar

How is that achieved? Is it covered by legislation or something? Just curious.

Biggins

69 wrote: »

How is that achieved? Is it covered by legislation or something? Just curious.

I'm guessing but I'd say that some sort of agreement has been reached between Childline and the phone services, The latter keeping the actual numbers confidential unless there is a Gardi emergency.
They probably have agreed just to release the actual numeric numbers of calls for privacy sake.

Its just a guess though and could be wrong.

WindSock

I don't really know tbh. All I know is that it is a confidential service.

They have also branched out beyond phonecalls to text based services too.

Hagar

I just looked at the site and they also have a chat room.
They even have a "Hide me" boss button at the bottom of the screen. Really sad to think of a child needing to use that.

Biggins

69 wrote: »

I just looked at the site and they also have a chat room.
They even have a "Hide me" boss button at the bottom of the screen. Really sad to think of a child needing to use that.

I know it would probably only be a small tiny number - the smaller the better - but if broadband services are worse the further we get away from cities, would that mean those that have no access to a phone, would have even lesser chance of getting the help they need by the way mentioned above?

Another darn good reason to get those broadband lines sorted Mr Cowen.

WindSock

At the moment the service is accessable from a mobile, landline, payphone and the internet. I think that's pretty accessable. It would be hard to find many kids that don't have access to any of these.

Biggins

The more the better as it said.

peanuthead

Sasha Many Skull wrote: »

The stats are skewed. Their number is a free phone number open 24 hours a day. I call them when I'm pissed just for something to do.

Okay a bit of a stupid thing to say, but maybe the point being made here is that this happens, like it or not.

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

Nice use of an overstretched service...:rolleyes:

It is terrible, but the reality of it is that it happens, so in that way their stats are wrong.

Jimmy Bottlehead wrote: »

Why don't you cop yourself on? I volunteer, and the last thing that that service needs is some drunk pr1ck ringing up and taking up time that kids need. I hope you realise for every call you make, you're potentially stopping a young child getting to talk to someone - someone that could get them help from violence, abuse, or talk them out of commiting suicide.

I'm all for humour in AH but that's just complete BS. Hope your conscience rests easy man, mine wouldn't.

True, but its not just drunks that do this, its kids too. I'm ashamed to say that as children we did this. Luckily for us we didn't understand the severity of what we were doing as we had a great childhood. Looking back on this I am so ashamed that we did this as kids, but we did. And I know for a fact that a lot of other kids do the very same thing, just for a laugh and sometimes not realising the consequences of their actions.

And please, none of the BS sweeping statements like "Of course kids know what they are doing"

They know what the service is there for and they don't need it. They don't understand the statistics behind it. Some do, but there are also some that don't see it that way.

peanuthead

69 wrote: »

I just looked at the site and they also have a chat room.
They even have a "Hide me" boss button at the bottom of the screen. Really sad to think of a child needing to use that.

And even worse to think that in spite of that button being there some children will still be too terrified to go on it.

Jimmy Bottlehead

peanuthead wrote: »

Okay a bit of a stupid thing to say, but maybe the point being made here is that this happens, like it or not.



It is terrible, but the reality of it is that it happens, so in that way their stats are wrong.



True, but its not just drunks that do this, its kids too. I'm ashamed to say that as children we did this. Luckily for us we didn't understand the severity of what we were doing as we had a great childhood. Looking back on this I am so ashamed that we did this as kids, but we did. And I know for a fact that a lot of other kids do the very same thing, just for a laugh and sometimes not realising the consequences of their actions.

And please, none of the BS sweeping statements like "Of course kids know what they are doing"

They know what the service is there for and they don't need it. They don't understand the statistics behind it. Some do, but there are also some that don't see it that way.

Absolutely. But like stated, the kids at least learn that no matter what, the service won't give out to them or hang up. And above all else, at least the kids are entitled to ring that number. Adults aren't. At least with kids there's potential that they'll use the service for its intended use in the future.

dilallio

69 wrote: »

That's a logged call every 45 seconds day-in day-out for a whole year. Those stats can't be correct. I don't think Childline can handle that number of calls.
800,000 ? How many children are in the country? If it's the same kids ringing back time after time what's the point in the service?


Edit - I see from the link 300,000 went unanswered so they are not all logged calls

According to the One O Clock news there are 1 million children in the country.
800,000 calls to childline and because of limited resources, they were able to answer 500,000 of those.

Some of those 300,000 were unanswered because some idiots find it funny to call Childline for a prank.

Pittens

I never volunteered for this. However my guess is that a lot of children calling childline legitimately would be doing so for reasons related to the life away from their parents - it is their peers who cause most of the problems for kids - bullying, name calling, isolation etc. A child with great parents despised at school is in a much worse situation than a child with mediocre parents love at school.

Or relationships - teenagers make calls too, a lovelorn teenager is not to be sniffed at. That can be real pain.

the initial reaction to this - these kids are abused is wrong.

Also the 800,000 is calls, not children, and seems to incllude the 300K unanswered. Presumably the 300,000 might try call back reducing the number of children calling to 500K, and if a child uses the service more than once - the number if unique users drop again.

What's childlines policy on actual reports of sexual abuse - that should get immediately referred to a social worker I think. I assume it is something like that.

ScumLord

Pittens wrote: »

What's childlines policy on actual reports of sexual abuse - that should get immediately referred to a social worker I think. I assume it is something like that.

It's policy is probably to release shock statistics to get media attention. I doubt they would let actual in dept stats outside the organisation.

Crumble Froo

interesting thread. i volunteer on a similar phoneline in nz, geared towards people with mental health issues, rather than children, but one trend we've noticed is that people who want to get through, if left with a busy line message, will ring back and ring back every 30-90secs until they get through.

i suspect the same would be true for childline, and as well, that a lot of people will ring daily, or regularly. i know on the line im on, there's certain people whose voices/situations/personalities you come to recognise who sometimes ring up in a panic cos everything's going wrong, others, they're just lonely, others they just ring up and say that everything's going great at the moment!

some of our calls are quite serious - suicide/abuse/violence, but the vast majority, as i'd imagine would also be true for childline, are just about daily things - family, friends, work, school, feeling stressed, belittled, confused, overwhelmed.

as well, i know i called childline a couple of times when i was younger, and i'd say it took 4 or 5 times of getting through and someone answering before i could get beyond saying 'hello' and then freaking out and hanging up again. something else ive experienced a lot on the calls ive gotten on the line i volunteer for here. so the numbers seem huge, but i think, in reality, the amount of children and teenagers using the line are a lot fewer, and probably for less serious reasons than immediately spring to mind when you think of childline.

that was dreadfully rambly, but im pretty sure there's a couple of points hidden in there somewhere....

WindSock

Pittens wrote: »

What's childlines policy on actual reports of sexual abuse - that should get immediately referred to a social worker I think. I assume it is something like that.

Only with the childs consent will a case be referred. The child will have to provide their contact details and it will be passed on and looked into.

http://www.childline.ie/FAQs.aspx

Childline are here to listen and talk things through with you to help you work out what you want to do. If you want, we can contact a social worker or the gardai for you, or give you their details to contact them yourself. We can not say that you will get help from a garda or social worker, but can pass on information

CrazyRabbit

Biggins wrote: »

I heard this mentioned last night by Vincent Brown on TV3 but waited till there was a link available to back it up. 800,000 Irish calls to Childline made last year - thats absolutely staggering in this day and age.
Holy hell, come on legislators, let start putting the fear of long term prison sentencing back into the scumbags that are out there.

Absolute madness.


Irish Examiner
Read more: Here.

Harsh sentences only deter people who think they will get caught. Criminals don't think they will get caught, so harsh sentences don't work. You just have to look at the 3-strike rule in the US to see that, or certain countries where they cut off your hands for stealing!

Biggins

CrazyRabbit wrote: »

Harsh sentences only deter people who think they will get caught. Criminals don't think they will get caught, so harsh sentences don't work. You just have to look at the 3-strike rule in the US to see that, or certain countries where they cut off your hands for stealing!

I do agree that some criminals don't think they will get caught to some extent (remembering that most slip-up sooner or later) but then if we adopt the 3 strikes rule for such perverted criminals, it might be a good start to keeping them off the streets for ever after?

Richard Noggin

The majority of them are pranks I'd say.

Teddy Chips

I wonder how many of them calls were from priests.