Children’s experiences texting with a child helpline

Evaluating a helpline for post‐secondary students: Caller distress, ability to face concern and satisfaction with helpline

“…Similarly, Jensen et al. 's (2020) study of children's experiences with a Danish helpline showed that clients want counsellors to build rapport with them by being understanding, taking them seriously, actively listening, being kind and friendly, showing compassion, letting them talk about the things they need to talk about and exploring their situation with them. Helplines can leverage these findings to enhance the effectiveness of their counselling services by providing supports to counsellors that enable them to build rapport and convey a sense of understanding with each client (e.g., sufficient time for each call, coaching and training).…”

“…'s (2022) evaluation of a text‐based helpline found that clients' perceptions of the counsellors' concern for them had the strongest association with perceived effectiveness of the helpline, with participants providing more positive feedback about counsellors being nearly 24 times more likely to report that the session was helpful. Furthermore, studies examining young people's experiences of using helplines emphasise that young people value counsellors being understanding (Gibson et al., 2016; Jensen et al., 2020). Gibson et al.…”