Surge in Calls to Crossline

By John Pither - Added 21st of July 2009

Crossline has seen a dramatic surge in the number of calls it has been receiving on its national number 0845 33 77 789 since the middle of March this year. We have already received nearly as many calls in 2009 as we received in the whole of 2008. This means we will receive over 14,000 calls if the present trend continues. The graphic below shows the calls to the line in each month of 2009.

clstats

This is a general trend that has been seen across many helplines in this country as a result of the increased mental distress, relationship problems and casued by the economic downturn. With the added issues around swine flu on top of this now, we would anticipate calls to increase still more.

Therefore the pressure on helpline servcies perhaps has never been this intense for many years.

Swine flu brings the added complication of helplines having the problem of insufficient staff to be open to take the calls at a time when people need to talk to someone and where a telephone may be the only means to do that safely. Therefore many helplines need extra people resources to help them provide the support needed.

Crossline is always looking for new listeners to train through its 20 hour accredited training course. This can be either through a traditional method of attending the 8 sessions of training over a number of weeks or through the new alternative means of watching a dvd of the training and interacting with a trainer by email and/or one to one meetings. For more information about this visit Crossline on this web site or the Chrsitian Helplines Association web site. Do get in touch if you would like to train as a christian listener.

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Article written by John Pither - www.covcitymission.org.uk.

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