Kids Help Phone

Link

https://www.kidshelpphone.ca/Teens/PhoneUs.aspx

Overview

Kids Help Phone, created in 1989, provides toll-free, 24-hour, bilingual and anonymous phone counselling, web counselling, and referral service for children and youth. Services are provided by trained professional counsellors, who focus on building the skills and abilities youth need to improve their emotional health and well-being. Kids Help Phone is the only organization in Canada that provides 24/7 professional support for youth in need.

The website provides links to their phone and web based counselling services. Each service has a list of frequently asked questions, as well as describing what happens when you call. While the web-based service closed in 2015, a database of every question that was asked has been created so that youth may still look up other’s questions and how counsellors responded to them. The forums include the following categories: bullying, dating, emotional health, violence and abuse, family, school, friends, living on your own, and LGBTQ questioning. Kids Help Phone also has a program database (found here), where youth can look for different types of support, including counselling and mental health support, that are close to them.

An extremely detailed ‘Info Booth’ also provides information on a diverse range of topics that youth may be interested in. The emotional health section provides details on 16 different topics, ranging from substance abuse to eating disorders. Each topic provides a brief description on what the subject is, as well as advice on what to do if one or a loved one is experiencing or suffering from that issue or illness.

Kidshelpphone.ca also includes additional online resources, such as games and quizzes, to help youth learn about mental health and other issues in an interactive manner. The website also provides suggestions on how youth can get involved if they wish to help others in need, such as starting a Kids Help Phone School club. This part of the website includes information that deals specifically with young males and asking for help. Kids Help Phone was given grant money to be used specifically to assisting boys, as a survey done by Kids Help Phone showed that 63% of the respondents thought it was harder for guys than girls to reach out because of “the pressure society puts on guys to hide their feelings”.

Analysis

Kids Help Phone serves as a multi-use resource for youth, as it provides assistance, educational information, and additional resources. The primary reason this resources has been included is because of the phone counselling services that Kids Help Phone gets its name from. It provides 24/7, immediate access to professional counselling for youth, as well as help for youth who are looking for services that are geographically close to them.

The professional counselling services offered by Kids Help Phone are important for young men, as they are easy to access, free, and anonymous. This provides fewer barriers for young men to try and get help for mental health issues or illnesses. The referral resources that Kids Help Phone provides also means that youth using Kids Help Phone can possibly be directed to services that are close to them physically. For those that are in need of consistent or prolonged counselling, this resource finder can help direct them to professionals in their area through the assistance of a Kids Help Phone counsellor.

The information and FAQ sections are also extremely beneficial as they provide indirect assistance in the form of educational tools and a shared experience database. For young men to see that their peers are facing issues that might be similar to theirs may comfort them in a sense that they are seeing that they are not alone in their feelings or illness.