Youthline

Youthline is a first point of contact for young people across New Zealand to access a wide range of youth development and support services. Our primary focus is to engage young people and their families – both those who seek assistance and those who wish to develop themselves. We do this through programmes in schools, mentoring, ongoing support from our Youth Workers, counselling, development opportunities, as well as our most recognised service – our Free Youth Helpline.

Youthline’s flagship service is our FREE nationwide Helpline and Text Counselling Services which runs 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, and is staffed by a large team of fully trained volunteers supported by Clinical Staff - providing immediate support, development opportunities and referral services.  We know that the single greatest reason young people do not ask for help is embarrassment, and that 1 in 2 young people do not think their problems are being enough to ask for help and that 1 in 3 texts to Youthline relate to suicide, depression, self-harm and anxiety. 1 in 7 of all texts we receive relate specifically to suicide. We do life changing work through our Helpline, it is undoubtedly our most important work in positively impacting Mental Health in NZ.

The cost to provide this service is approximately $800,000 a year which last year received a total of 298,730 phone calls, text messages, web chats and emails from young people right around New Zealand who reached out when they needed it the most.  It’s not a fully funded government service, we receive only a very small amount of $87,000 towards this cost. It’s a big part of Youthline’s expenses each year and all of the money raised from the Entertainment Books will be going to help fund this service.

Thank you for your support.