Childline Emergency Appeal to help keep the phones answered

ChildLine is a charity that provides a free 24 hour phone line for children in distress or danger. Many calls are answered by trained volunteers, but they also have paid staff which supervise / manage the counselling centres and cover the night time shifts. Due to a lack of funding the night time shift is now at risk. The belief is that one of the reasons that funding is drying up is that attention has been focused on the major events, such as the Tsunami and as a result many charities have been missing out.

I already support another children’s charity the NSPCC. I give a regular donation to the NSPCC as part of the Give As You Earn scheme, after I had done a NSPCC Keeping Children Safe course. Whilst both these charities are to help and protect children ChildLine is provided as a lifeline directly to children. After hearing about the appeal I visited their website www.childline.org.uk and found the real life stories very moving. As a result I’ve made a donation (which can be done online or through the post). I’d encourage everyone to at least visit the site and see how they really help children.

As well as providing the helpline they have also got together with the other major children’s charities to create Techie tips for safer surfing and mobile phones.