By Amar-Singh HSS and PH Wong
Child helplines, dedicated for children, are invaluable.
They offer children a safe space where children can speak to a trained counsellor, without judgement, about concerns and a wide range of issues.
Critically, they offer a lifeline to abused children to seek help and rescue.
Trained call counsellors can also offer guidance on a variety of issues, including family problems, peer relationships and psychosocial health. In addition, they offer data that can inform policy and practice.
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The 15999 Childline was started in 2010 in the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development with the aid of Childline Foundation, Malaysia. This first child helpline was a free 24-hour helpline for children, operated by trained staff and was called the Talian Nur hotline for children.
This was subsequently redesigned into Talian Kasih in 2015, which has a much wider scope. It covers abuse, domestic violence, juvenile problems, poverty, single mothers, people with disabilities, welfare assistance and counselling services. One good thing about the current Talian Kasih is the availability of a WhatsApp number to enable those who are deaf to express their concerns.
While the Talian Kasih plays an important role, it dilutes the support that children require. A line that is not dedicated for children results in a larger volume of calls to deal with. Staff have to be trained in many different areas, and they may lack expertise in supporting children. All this could result in a less effective service for children.
There have been calls in the past by Suhakam and the Child Rights Coalition Malaysia to restore the functions of the Talian Nur child helpline as a dedicated line to ensure the safety of children.
The lack of a dedicated child helpline has prompted other civil society organisations to start helplines for children and young people, like the Buddy Bear Childline.
If we would like to improve the quality of our civil service helplines, we should move to having two different lines – one general helpline for welfare needs and adult issues and another dedicated line for children.
The dedicated helpline for children and teenagers should be managed by trained staff who have experience in dealing with psychosocial issues in children, including child abuse. It should have a range of staff who can speak Chinese, English, Malay and Tamil; possibly some East Malaysian languages as well, for calls from Sabah and Sarawak.
The line should be child and teenager-friendly.
The dedicated helpline for children must have the capacity to respond quickly, all over the country, to urgent needs when violence is involved. This would be best done with staff from the Welfare Department partnering a large network of NGOs using the provisions of the Child Act 2001.
There should be ongoing training for those operating the helpline with staff emotional support.
A dedicated helpline for children should be free and operating 24 hours.
It should be widely and continually advertised through all forms of media and in all education facilities so that children are aware of the availability of the service.
One important point to recognise about children calling in is that they may take time to express their serious concerns. Internationally, it is recognised that boys in particular may call up to seven times before speaking up. Hence, there are not ‘prank calls’ by call category but ‘dropped calls’ and should be taken seriously.
Finally, any serious attempt to provide a dedicated helpline for children and teenagers should be audited periodically for improvement. The audit should preferably be transparent and conducted by an external team. It should cover quality of services, responsiveness, children’s awareness of the helpline number and the ability of staff. It should also include feedback from children.
Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS is a consultant paediatrician and child disability activist. Datin PH Wong is from Childline Foundation and co-secretariat of the Child Rights Coalition Malaysia.
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