Lifeline (Counselling service)
Encyclopedia
Lifeline is a free, 24 hour telephone counselling service in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Volunteer counsellors provide suicide prevention, crisis support and mental health services via telephone. This service can be accessed by calling 13 11 14 within Australia.

Telephone counselling is provided via a network of Lifeline Centres maintained by trained volunteers and some paid staff. As at April 2010, there were almost 60 Lifeline locations, with about 3,500 staff handling calls and another 7,500 volunteers involved with fundraising and administration.

Between 2009 and 2010, Lifeline received 449,946 telephone calls. In the same period, Lifeline reported operating costs to be funded by revenue comprising 23% community support, 68% through government grants and 9% from other sources.

Some Lifeline Centres also provide other support services which may include face to face counselling, group support, assistance with food & utility bills, support for the elderly and frail, and related services.

It is an important service for many people with a mental health illness who cannot access their doctor after business hours.

History

Lifeline was established in 1963 in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 by the late Reverend Dr Sir Alan Walker
Alan Walker (theologian)
Sir Alan Walker OBE was an Australian Christian minister, theologian and evangelist.Walker was:*involved in the formation of the World Council of Churches...

 of the Methodist Central Mission, now known as Wesley Mission
Wesley Mission
Wesley Mission is a name used by several Uniting Church congregations which are a part the Uniting Missions Network of UnitingCare Australia. Wesley Missions grew out of the inner city missions of the pre-union Methodist Church of Australasia...

. Rev Walker was inspired to establish Lifeline after realising that he alone did not have the time or resources to provide sufficient attention and help to the increasing number of people facing difficulties and personal crises who were contacting him for assistance.

Following two years of planning and preparation, a nine month training course for 150 people, the renovation of a century old building owned by Wesley Mission in downtown Sydney, and the listing of the Lifeline telephone number on the emergency page of the telephone directory, the first call to the service was received on March 16, 1963.

In January 1964, Lifeline was featured in an article in TIME
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....

 magazine, which led to the establishment of similar services around the world. The first international convention of Lifeline was held in Sydney in August 1966 to guide the development of Lifeline services and to establish quality standards, which led to the formation of Lifeline International.

International operations

Lifeline is part of an international network and through LifeLine International has centres in nineteen countries. All Lifeline Centres adopt the same standards but use different names in some countries. For example, in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 the service is called Telecare; in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Inochi no Denwa (meaning "life phone"); and in the United States of America, Contact.

Lifeline is also a member of the Volunteer Emotional Support Helplines
Volunteer Emotional Support Helplines
Volunteer Emotional Support Helplines is a planned combined international network of telephone counseling services being formed by the 3 largest international services...

(VESH) - a partnership between Befrienders Worldwide, International Federation of Telephone Emergency Services (IFOTES) and LifeLine International. Members have pledged to work together to provide an effective telephone crisis counseling service throughout the world. The VESH network of volunteer counsellors provides services in 61 countries.

External links

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