Get to the point

Welcome to Get Connected's spring newsletter. Hopefully you're seeing some sunshine and feeling the beginnings of warmer weather...

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We've had to say goodbye to Danielle, our long-serving Volunteer Co-ordinator, who has left to spend more time on her Counselling doctorate and will be working part time for ChildLine. Danielle started off as a volunteer Helpline Worker at Get Connected in 2004 and has made a huge impression on volunteers and staff alike: a good one I hasten to add!

This means we're now looking for another Volunteer Co-ordinator. If you've got experience supporting people and working with volunteers, this could be just the job for you. Read more about it on our website. 

We also wish good luck to Marketing Officer James, who has moved on from Get Connected to run marketing at a currency exchange company (we haven't even pretended to understand exactly what this involves but hopefully James himself does). 

Volunteers are on the up! New online advertising to recruit volunteer Helpline Workers is proving successful and the last two rounds of recruitment have resulted in impressively high numbers of new volunteers joining the team. 

'I've been drinking to cope since my mum died'

Luke, 16, called Get Connected a couple of months after his mum died. He'd been finding it really difficult to cope without her, and so had his sister Lucy. Lucy, who is 10, had been taken into foster care and he wasn't getting to see her much. He'd started drinking to cope with how miserable he felt. Lately he'd started thinking about taking other drugs, and knew they wouldn't be too difficult to get hold of if alcohol wasn't helping any more.

Now the aunt he was staying with was threatening to throw him out onto the street, and Luke couldn't think of anywhere to go.

He asked Get Connected for help, wondering whether if he could give up drinking his aunt would let him stay where he was.

We found Luke the Eclypse Young Person's Drug and Alcohol Service in Manchester, which could give him one-to-one support with giving up drinking, and where he could meet other young people affected by similar problems. Luke also took the number of Cruse Bereavement Care, a helpline he could phone for bereavement counselling.

We told him about his local Housing Department in case he needed alternative accommodation, and asked him to ring us back if he found himself out on the street. We could connect him for free to organisations providing young people with emergency accommodation if he had nowhere else to go, and look at long term housing advice.

News from the helpline

Demand for our webchat and email services continues to rise. We received on average 75 emails each month in 2007-08, and are now receiving an average of 140 each month. As for webchats, we were receiving an average of 199 attempts to contact us via webchat per month last year, compared to 487 each month this year (during opening hours). We know that these channels of communication are extremely important for young people facing issues like abuse and self-harm, as well as other concerns, and we're doing all we can to answer each young person quickly and supportively.

This means we're looking for more volunteers, especially those comfortable with computers and written communication, so if you've got four hours a week to spare visit our volunteer section or call the office on 020 7009 2500. 

We're delighted to welcome two new members of helpline staff - Emma Greenwood, Helpline Officer, and Jenny Bull, Helpline Assistant. Emma will join Lucy in supervising the helpline, managing its information resources and running training sessions and open evenings. Jenny is working on the helpline itself, ensuring we can respond to calls and emails in the afternoon when we have fewer volunteers available. 

 

News from the Fundraising department

Jackie Sales at auction 09

Auction 2009 raises £145,000! Our friends and supporters at The Carphone Warehouse and their suppliers ensured that this year's auction was a triumph in spite of the tightening of purse strings that we're all keenly aware of. We enjoyed the company of some long-standing friends including Jackie Sales, one of Get Connected's founders, pictured above. Held at the Stationers' Hall in London on February 24th, the auction encouraged guests to bid in a silent auction and a live auction, with lots including

  • Dinner for ten people at the Dorchester's Krug Room
  • A week at a 5-star villa in Antigua
  • Extreme sailing with ex-Olympian sailor Ian Gotts
  • A hot air balloon ride with the first person to fly to the North Pole in a balloon, David Hempleman-Adams

Get Connected would like to thank everyone who donated an auction item, raffle prize or who bid on the night - your support will enable us to help thousands of young people this year, including our 100,000th young person.

Beat the winter wobbles by running for Get Connected this summer! Get Connected has guaranteed places in two exciting London races:

- 5KM run around Regent's Park on 10th May 2009
- 10KM run with 24,000 others around Central London on 12th July

Get Connected depends on the enthusiasm of our dedicated supporters, so make your fitness programme and race day a cause for celebration by choosing to run and raise money for young people in crisis.

For further information and to confirm your place, please contact Alexandra Parsons or visit our website.

Changes to the Newsletter

We like sharing our successes and challenges with you, but we'd also like to hear about yours. As of the next issue of the newsletter, we'll be compiling more comprehensive editions that include anything you'd like to share with other young people's services. If you've just started a new project, heard about a new funding stream or are developing a new resource, why don't you email us and we'll include it? The Get Connected newsletter is received by our members, volunteers, supporters and others who have an interest in helping young people.

If at any time you'd rather stop receiving the newsletter, just let us know.

News from the Youth Helplines Network

The founding organisations of the Youth Helplines Network have devised a programme of work for the year. This includes sharing best practice on the demonstration of outcomes, which has traditionally been very difficult for helplines. The Network has fed into Ofcom's consultation on implementing the Harmonised European Numbers of Social Value which you can read more about on Ofcom's website. The most relevant number to Get Connected and the Youth Helplines Network is 116111, which children and young people across Europe will shortly be able to ring to speak to a child helpline operating in the country that they call from.