Get Connected : eNewsletters : Issue 12

Issue 12
Get To The Point Run the London 10K and raise money for Get Connected An opportunity to support Get Connected and an excuse to get fit. Contact fundraising for more information. Congratulations Jiselle! Jiselle Steele, who has been a volunteer Helpline Worker for over a year, was appointed administrator / PA to our Director in February. She'll continue to volunteer on the helpline, meaning all office staff are now Helpline Workers as well! Get Connected research Conducted with Sugar Magazine, our research suggested over 13% of young people self-harm when they're upset. Visit the press section of our website for further details of the research. Webchat extends to three evenings a week. 26 volunteer Helpline Workers are now trained to provide our helpline service via webchat, meaning we can now provide this service on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 7pm-10pm. case study [Estelle] even when i'm in a crowd with my friends i feel really alone. does it sounds stupid? [Get Connected] No, not at all. Can you think of anything that could be making you feel isolated from them? [Estelle] my boyfriend dumped me for my best friend. she swore she didn't like him but I've seen them kissing. why am i the one feeling bad? Estelle contacted Get Connected by webchat because she felt confused and upset. She hadn't expected to be so miserable about her boyfriend and her best mate, and thought there might be more to it. She didn't want to use the phone, however, and didn't know what was available online. Get Connected enabled her to choose a young people's email service she could use to discuss her feelings with other teenagers and who could help her start feeling better about herself.	Auction raises £186,000 for Get Connected The annual auction held by The Carphone Warehouse in aid of Get Connected raised more than ever on February 20^th. Held at the Pigalle Club in London's Piccadilly, the auction was attended by friends of The Carphone Warehouse including representatives from Freud Communications, Hello Magazine and of course many from the mobile phone industry. The 3^rd auction to benefit Get Connected, this event always makes a huge difference to the work Get Connected is able to do over the year. 2006's auction raised £100,000 and enabled us to extend the capacity of the helpline. Since launching our webchat service in June, we've been able to train 26 volunteers to provide support in this way. 2007's auction will help us develop webchat hours from 3 nights per week to a daily service matching the phone and email services, so that we're there on any day a young person needs us. Getting help via webchat has proved especially convenient for young people concerned with such traumatic situations they can't vocalise their fears. Webchats most commonly concern self-harm or abuse. Get Connected would like to thank all who organised, donated or attended this year's auction - we look forward to seeing you at next year's! Where's Your Head At? We started the Where's Your Head At? campaign with research amongst over 1,000 young people via Sugar Magazine and revealed some startling results: More than 16% of respondents said they turned to food when they felt really miserable and over 13% confessed that they self-harmed to cope with feeling down. Significantly, over half of all respondents admitted that these coping strategies didn't work. Further details of our research are available at www.getconnected.org.uk/press You can help Get Connected ensure young people don't have to struggle alone with their problems by telling them about the Get Connected helpline. Young winner's design to be unveiled on mystery London building Get Connected's Where's Your Head At? competition has received over 50 entries, one of which is pictured above. The competition is part of our campaign to encourage young people to express their feelings with each other and those who can help them. The winning design, chosen by a panel of young judges, will be projected onto a major London building in June. The winner will be invited to view it with Get Connected from a prime location nearby. Keep in touch to find out where...
John Reed Volunteer Helpline Worker What's your role at Get Connected? I'm a volunteer Helpline Worker and shift-leader. How and when did you get involved? Three years ago I went to Ealing Council of Voluntary Services. Ealing CVS were very positive about Get Connected, so I signed up. I'd known I wanted to volunteer but not what sort of cause. In fact I'd decided not to work with children or young people because they face such difficult problems it would be a tough job! Are you involved with any other charities? Yes - I'm Company Secretary of Mind in Ealing and Hounslow. It uses my business experience. It's a complete contrast with the work I do at Get Connected, which is about delivering the service. Do you have any particular motivation for working at Get Connected? Now that I'm here, I appreciate the way Get Connected is professionally organised and run. I set up a Citizens Advice Bureau in the North East in the 1970s, which has a focus on access to information that Get Connected shares. What are the benefits to you? The opportunity to care for people, which is important to me. It's also a chance to meet people in a structured way, where you have a common ground. Is there anything unexpected about working at Get Connected? One thing I didn't expect was the impact certain calls would have, for example young carers, whose situation has really made an impression on me. Do you have plans to use any learning/experiences from Get Connected in the future? Yes. I'll be looking for work in the charity sector and the knowledge of how charities work will be useful. And whilst I've always had good speaking and listening abilities, those have been honed at Get Connected. Caroline Watson Senior Advisor at the Refugee Council In what way have you been working with Get Connected? Get Connected has visited the Refugee Council on two occasions. The first was a meeting of our children's panel. The panel works with unaccompanied children (under 18), including those who are more vulnerable because they're pregnant or have mental health problems. Get Connected introduced its service to us so that we could promote it to the young people we work with. Get Connected also came to our social evening, where they talked about the service to 140 young refugees of different nationalities. Young refugees have Get Connected cards in their wallets now. The Refugee Council also now distributes the Blue Card to young people, which we were made aware of through Get Connected. Do you have any particular motivation for supporting the partnership? We support a lot of young people who can't enter appropriate support networks because their age is disputed by the Home Office. Get Connected is fantastic for these young people, who don't have the money to make a phone call but need to get in touch with us. And if it helps them, it makes me happy! Have you faced any challenges so far? Young refugees turning 18 are likely to be refused leave to remain in the UK, and sent home despite having spent their formative years here. Meanwhile we're losing a lot of good welfare and immigration solicitors because the government is making cuts in Legal Aid. This means the under 18 year olds who are not picked up by Social Services, for whom the Refugee Council tries to find a welfare/legal solicitor, don't know where to turn for help. So there's even more need for them to have a Get Connected card now. What outcome are you hoping for and whom will it benefit? They're children before they're refugees. So they should be looked after like any other child in the UK. At the moment, young people wait in limbo once they're 18 for the Home Office to make a decision on whether they can stay in the UK, sometimes for years. During this time they need access to support like any other young person, and Get Connected can give them that. Is there anything people reading this can do to help, learn more or get involved? You can donate clothes for teenage boys, which we need just now. We're also always looking for volunteers to help at the social evenings and surgeries we run for young refugees. Visit the ‘Get Involved' section of our website www.refugeecouncil.org.uk Where do you see the partnership going in the future? Get Connected needs to raise awareness of the helpline in the refugee sector. Since our client group changes all the time, it will also be useful for you to come back to social events and meet new young refugees. What will make a huge difference is having the Get Connected card translated into the languages spoken by young refugees. Get Connected believes charities shouldn't pay VAT: join us by signing the petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Charities/ If you'd like more information about anything mentioned in the Newsletter, please contact us or call 020 7009 2500. Powered by phplist