Earlier this year our club had organised a public "Walk for Mental Health" and gave the resulting $5400 to Youth Line. Tonight Abbey Busch and Chris Dean explained what Youth Line does. The statistics of mental health in New Zealand are frightening: one person in four will develop clinical anxiety at some stage and one in seven depression. The most vulnerable age group is 15 - 25.
Abbey came from Auckland to Wellington in 2017. With a B.Sc. in Psychology she is a career course assessor for Youth Line. She is currently studying Level 4 Maori and gave an introduction in fluent Maori. Chris hails from North Shore and came to Wellington via Palmerston North. He has been part of the Youth Line Communication Team since 2019. He is a pilot for Air New Zealand regional flights and is the peer support person for pilots.
Youth Line was started in 1970 as a 24/7 phone and text help line for young people. It is filling an urgent need as there is currently a year long waiting list to see a professional psychologist on National Health. Youth Line can give immediate support and is often a pathway to professional help. The target audience is young people but anyone can call them. The most common first communication method is texting, which often leads to talking later.
As by definition most callers are very vulnerable it is vital that Youth Line volunteer counsellors are well trained, and a four week self-development course is supplied for new counsellors, with formal training after that if they prove suitable. In all a counsellor will receive fifty hours of training and subsequent further courses. Money is needed to maintain the service and to train new counsellors, who currently range from 19 to 60s. In 2019 the Wellington Youth Line received over 400 calls and 1,000 texts. Covid lockdowns meant that counsellors could not use their domestic phone lines and had to revert to texting alone, and some fund sponsors were stretched.
Abbey is also a co-ordinator of youth development programmes and provides workshops involving acknowledged experts and often school youth groups. We were left with the feeling that our contribution was money well used, and grateful to Abbey and Chris for their work for Youth Line and their talk to us.