Cyber bullying top problem behind 100 calls a day to Galway Childline

 Bullying, and in particular cyber-bullying, is one of the main concerns of children who contact Galway’s Childline office, which answers almost 100 calls a day.

 The economic recession also continues to be a major issue playing on the minds of our youth, according to volunteers manning Childline phones.

Mental health problems, including depression, anxiety and worries, are other prominent concerns while the strictly confidential service continues to be an outlet for children who are suffering abuse.

New figures show that the Galway office of children’s charity helpline, Childline, received some 35,243 phone calls in 2012, which equates to roughly 96 daily on average.

In addition, the charity dealt with more than 23,000 ‘contacts’ through its text message service and its online email and web chats. That included 17,550 ‘text conversations’ and some 6,176 ‘web conversations’. In May of this year the service received its five millionth call proving the facility is still a huge part of children’s lives in Ireland.

The phones are operated by volunteers of the ISPCC (Irish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children).

The Galway office, at Galway Retail Park on Headford Road, has a cohort of between 80 and 100 volunteers for its Childline service and mentoring and advocacy services.

Outside of Dublin, the Galway call-centre is the biggest and busiest of eight centres in the country.

Fiona Jennings, Regional Volunteer Organiser of ISPCC in the west, said around 9,000 of the calls received in Galway related to bullying.

That’s about 25 percent of all calls, and increasingly it’s cyber-bullying over the internet and on social networking sites that is the worry rather than traditional school-yard bullying.

Typically the children are aged 13-16 but they have received calls from children as young as six.

“Cyber bullying is huge at the moment,” said Ms Jennings.

“In the past the ‘traditional bullying stopped at the school gates or after the youth club closed its door but with cyber-bullying it’s continuous – they are being bullied on the phone or on their computer.”

The bullying on social network sites include putting up photos of children without their permission, name-calling and ‘slagging’ but also social exclusion – not inviting a child to a party that everyone else in the class is going to; or excluding children from groups or blogs on the internet.

The figures were released to coincide with a fundraiser Cheerios Childline Breakfast Together Week, the charity’s biggest annual fundraiser that took in over €225,000 last year. This year’s event runs from October 7 to 13. To donate people can text BREAKFAST to 50300 to give €2 to Childline.

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel