All people need help from time to time. Parents, friends, relatives can become excellent advisers. But sometimes this is not enough. Therefore, there are special services that are at different levels ready to help a person. Do you know that there is a child helpline? About why you need it and how to get help, read the article.
What it is?
All children in the school should be told that there is a specific psychological assistance that they can receive. The practice of communicating with psychologists is well developed in Europe and the USA and fully justified the trust. So when can a child seek advice? The list of problems that can be helped by a specialist on the other end of the wire is simply huge. These are various everyday difficulties, and difficulties in communicating with parents or peers, problems in the family or just emerging personal life, troubles at school, etc. Specialists will also help in such seemingly trivial situations when the child received a deuce and she’s just afraid to go home or doesn’t want to go to school, because today she has a difficult control. All questions and problems that children turn to specialists are important and necessary.
goal
So, what are the main goals of the child helpline?
- The provision of completely free and necessarily anonymous advisory assistance in resolving certain issues.
- Providing timely assistance to children in difficult situations.
- Early identification of dysfunctional families in which children are brought up.
- Prevention of stress and suicidal feelings of children, strengthening family relationships.
- Preventive measures for abuse, as well as child and family problems.
- Parenting advice on parenting issues.
Important points
Today, unfortunately, not all guys know that there is a child helpline. However, information about this is being actively disseminated, and, undoubtedly, there are already first successes in solving a number of children's problems. I would like to say that excellent specialists who have specialized training and know how to help even in the most difficult and seemingly insoluble situations provide psychological counseling. As for the calls themselves, they are made free of charge from home and mobile phones, which makes psychological assistance available even for the smallest children (who have no money). By calling the single number of the child helpline: 8-800-2000-122, not only children (regardless of age) can receive help, but also their parents or those who replace them. That is, not only babies can seek advice, but also adults who do not know what to do in a particular situation that relates to raising a child or solving his problem.
International practice
Every year in Russia, May 17 is the International Children's Helpline Day. The main goal of this celebration is to draw the attention of as many people as possible to the need to solve children's problems. Indeed, often adults do not attach importance to the fact that a child may have difficult situations, arguing that children, in principle, have no serious problems. However, this is completely wrong, and practice shows the opposite. It is worth noting that the initiative to create such a special holiday belongs to Child Helpline International (International Association of Children's Helplines), officially recognized by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. An interesting fact is that this community includes 150 countries of the world, including Russia.
Domestic practice
As for our country, we actively started creating a hotline for children in 2007, when, with the help of the National Fund for the Protection of Children from Abuse, the Russian Association of Children's Helplines was organized. Today, over 280 telephone hotline services are already active. Each year, their specialists receive up to half a million calls from children, adolescents, as well as their parents. Since 2010, there has been a single children's helpline (number: 8-800-2000-122), to which almost all services are connected (some work according to local numbers of the regions where they operate). As mentioned above, you can call this number from both landline and mobile phones for free.
Some statistics
The fact that the children's helpline is of great benefit is also indicated by statistics. So, over two years (from 2010 to 2012), a single number received 1,518,813 calls, which were distributed in the following categories of the population: almost 57 percent from children and adolescents, more than 10 percent from parents and people from replacing, about 33 percent - from other citizens. There are also completely different problems, for the solution of which people seek psychological counseling. So, the most common of them are those related to child abuse. Most often, children and adults call the helpline in cases of:
- child abuse within the family (12,830 calls) and outside the family (5,254 calls);
- child abuse among peers (more than 13 thousand calls);
- sexual abuse of children (approximately 2,000 calls).
About the holiday
Many may ask: "Why is there a Children's Helpline Day?" Everything is simple, its main purpose is to disseminate information about the functioning of this service. This is a very important mission, because, unfortunately, not all children and adults are aware of the existence of such assistance. What is happening on this day? All methods of disseminating information are good, because the main goal is to attract as much attention as possible around people. How to promote a children's helpline? Booklets are a great way out. Small information sheets are always pre-prepared, which carry complete information about the functioning of this service. Such leaflets can be handed out not only on this one day. They are often taken to schools, and special posters with general information about the work of this service can also be hung there.
How else can you promote a child helpline? Photo is also a good helper. You can just take pictures of people who consult on the other end of the wire (men and women whose type inspires confidence), and thus attract the attention of passers-by. Various street events are also good practice, such as, for example, drawing on the pavement (always with winners) or small competitions (for example, who is more likely to remember the single number of the child helpline).
Other dissemination of information
How else can you promote the Russian / international child helpline? This will require volunteers who can conduct an information campaign in schools and other educational institutions. In this case, handouts must be available - both personal in the form of booklets, leaflets, and general ones, for example posters. It is also good to conduct a specialized all-school lesson, where children will be given complete information about the work of this service (it is good if the meeting ends with answers to students' questions). The training lessons are of great benefit, where they inform the children about the working principle of this service in a playful way, and it becomes easier for them to navigate in which situations you can turn to a specialist for help. In such classes, situations that may arise in the life of each child are lost, they give the kids the right model of behavior in solving their problems. It is also good to conduct a general survey of school students, thanks to this it will be possible to identify a potential group of problem children and work more closely with them directly.