New help line ready

Press, 11 October 1982, Page 6

New help line ready

The Child Help Line, a counselling service for children, is ready to take its first calls. The service’s coordinator, Ms Frances Gibbs (right) and the president of the Co-ordinating Organisation for Parent Education, Mrs Anne Marshall, are shown at their Wordsworth Street headquarters yesterday. Twenty trained volunteers will run the new telephone counselling service

from 7.30 a.m. to midnight each day. An offshoot of C.O.P.E.’s Parentline counselling service, Child Help is the idea of Professor Philip Ney, head of the Christchurch Clinical School’s department of psychological medicine. Cases of child abuse, particularly in the under-16 age group, are its main concern, “We think that we will . probably find a percentage

of children that people do not know about,” said Mrs Marshall. She believes that the Child Help Line, modelled on a Canadian Government service, is the first of its type in the world run by volunteers. Counsellors could talk to children about their home problems and if needed, refer them to the police or Social Welfare Department. The service could also act as a third party for people who

wanted to notify cases of child abuse. Bridging the communication gap within families was another role. Mrs Marshall said that many of its Parentline calls were from parents and teen-agers who could not communicate with each other but might if brought together for counselling. The telephone number of the Child Help Line is Christchurch 66-944.