Childline volunteering

boomerang!

I'd appreciate it if anyone could tell me about their experience volunteering with childline. I'm a student who really wants to get involved with phoneline work and am thinking that this is the way to go. However I have some hangups.

I'm sure every new volunteer thinks this, but what if i don't know what to say to the person on the other end? Or worse, what if I say the wrong thing? It's such a big responsibility.

Is it really about giving advice, or is it more about listening and understanding? Most of us are lucky enough to not have been in the situations some of these kids find themselves in, so can we really give them good advice? Should we? I'm sure this is something which would be discussed at training but I'd like to know before hand if giving advice is a large part of the job.

Does it get overwhelming? Listening to a child in danger, in crisis? I'm sure it would be very difficult to forget about when you leave work. I could see it interfering with your life and especially as I'm moving on to college, I'm wondering is it a heavy burden to take on? I'm sure it's rewarding, of course, but do the pros outweigh the cons?

If somebody has experience doing this, you don't necessarily have to answer all these questions, but I'd like to hear your side of it so I can make a somewhat informed decision. Would you recommend me, an 18 year old student, to volunteer? Thanks for any and all replies.

Warm Panda Cola

Hi,

You've asked a lot of great questions here, and fair play to you for thinking through it so carefully, a lot of people tend to volunteer for these organisations because it looks well on cv's etc, while there is nothing wrong with that, but they do so without thinking through the consequences of how they'll feel/will they be of benefit.

I volunteer for Childline on a regular basis, and have for some time now and all these questions were ones which I also had, so I'm glad to be of a bit of help now!!

Each and every volunteer even after months of training and even after being on the service for a while will ALWAYS have a worry-what will I say, will I say something wrong, what happens if I end up hurting the child more. But I can honestly say, the training you go through is so thorough, leaving no stone unturned, you will always have something to say. Even if it's just reflecting back (i.e. repeating what the child said to you but with slightly different wording) you will never be at a loss of what to say. There's also a huge support group of volunteers around you who when you're very badly stuck with what to say will be able to give you excellent advice. But trust me, there is always something to say! And you can never say the wrong thing, unless of course you tell the child to cop the **** on & grow up, which of course you're not going to do!! So I can't emphasise enough, that it's nigh on impossible to say the wrong thing.

One thing that's important to note is that it's a listening service, not an advice giving service. We are not qualified to give advice and these are children you are talking to, what may apply to you in your life that you think is great advice will undoubtedly not translate to theirs! You are there to listen, discuss with them their options, and empower them to come up with their own ideas about the situation, but you never ever give advice.

It does get overwhelming sometimes listening to the children, but you need to be able to put that aside, and it's with the training that this ability comes, we're all human, we can't switch off emotion at will, but the training really is excellent, they train you for every eventuality, there are also other things put in place that help you deal with what you are hearing emotionally, and on a practical level. I would prefer not to go into these on a public forum however, but rest assured there are systems in place. It is hard to distance yourself, but you have to remember, if you're affected by what's going on then how much help can you really be giving the child? You are there for the child, and we are all human obviously and are all affected by these issues, but it is of vital importance to remember that if you get upset, then you can't possibly be helping the child effectively and it's about them not you at the end of the day. This may sound harsh, but it's reality! And if afterwards you still can't shake what went on, there is a huge support network, no volunteer is ever left dealing with emotions by themselves.

They do ask you to commit at least a year to the service once training has been completed and you are officially on the service, but trust me, I couldn't envisage my life without my weekly stint in there. It's a great bunch of people who volunteer in there, there's a great social aspect to it, asides from the obvious helping children through what's going on for them.

If you are genuinely interested, I really cannot recommend it enough, it's the most rewarding thing you will ever do.

Hopefully this answers your questions, I do tend to ramble sometimes!