| Type | charity organisation |
|---|---|
| Founded | August 3, 2000 |
| Location | London, UK |
| Area served | UK |
| Mission | Get Connected finds young people help by providing a free and confidential support and signposting service and working with others to ensure that appropriate help is available |
| Website | www.getconnected.org.uk |
Get Connected UK is the UK’s free support service for under-25s. Young people can contact the helpline in confidence with any problem and a trained volunteer will find them the most appropriate help using a directory of over 13,000 trusted services around the country. Young people can call, email or webchat any day of the year, for emotional support to find the help they need to better their lives.[1]
Get Connected was established in 1999 by a partnership between the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and the British Transport Police, with support from Railway Children. Diana Lamplugh wanted to provide help to young people to young people under 25 who had run away from home or been thrown out. Get Connected’s role was to put these young people in touch, for free, with whatever service they needed.[2] The establishing principle was to empower the young person to make their own decision about the help they need, with the role of Get Connected being that of a gateway for a young person on the street to access any help they might need. Get Connected has developed beyond the initial remit, to help any young person under 25.[3]
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Get Connected Helpline provides help via phone, email or webchat. Whichever means of contact a young person chooses, each contact includes three stages: emotional support, exploring the options, and making contact with the best help. No young person is pressured to answer questions they are not comfortable answering and everything happens at the pace of the young person. The Helpline Volunteer helps the young person decide what they want to happen next, whether it is to change their situation or simply talk to someone about it. Get Connected gives contact information for the young person’s chosen source of support by phone, text to their mobile, or via email or webchat if they are online. For those young people who have no credit, do not want a phone call to show up on their phone bill or are simply too scared to explain their worries themselves, Get Connected’s Helpline Volunteers can make a one-off connection to another service.[4]
In 2009-2010, Get Connected’s team of 126 volunteers helped nearly 20,000 young people. The average numbers of contacts per months were: 236 emails, 1037 webchats, and 4071 calls. The top ten issues that young people contacted get connected with included: Housing and Homelessness (12%), Emotional Problems (10%), Relationship Issues outside Family (7%), Relationship Issues within Family (6%), Self-harm (6%), Sexual Issues (5%), Mental Health (5%), Bullying (5%), Sexuality (3%) and Feeling Suicidal (3%). Get Connected maintains a strict code of confidentiality. Confidentiality police implies that any information given to Get Connected by a service user remains within Get Connected, unless it falls into a situation where it may be breached. Circumstances where confidentiality can be breached include situations of life-threatening danger, situations when a service user identifies him or herself as a current abuser of a child, or situations when there is a threat to the service or those providing the service. The service user is always informed if confidentiality is to be broken.[5]
Get Connected has links with other organizations that share their commitment to helping young people and whose learning they can benefit from. These organisations include Beat, Brook, Metropolitan Police Service, NSPCC, Samaritans (charity), Shelter (charity), SANE (charity), Youth 2 Youth and others.[6]
Get Connected is made up of a mixture of paid staff and volunteers. Get Connected staff are paid employees responsible for implementing and achieving the organisational strategy formulated by the Executive Committee. The Chief Executive Officer of Get Connected is Fiona Clark. Get Connected currently has over 100 Helpline Volunteers, of whom approximately 20% are also shift leaders, trained to support and supervise other Helpline Volunteers. On average, one volunteer helps 200 young people each year.[7]
Get Connected raises funds through event fundraising, corporate partnerships, and individual giving. The largest of fundraising events is the annual auction organised in conjunction with The Carphone Warehouse. Other events include quiz nights, comedy nights, runs, skydiving, trekking, cycles and other activities.[8] In 2000, Get Connected became an independent charity and in 2001, joined The Carphone Warehouse in a partnership that continues today. The Carphone Warehouse supplies Get Connected with office and helpline equipment and it has been instrumental in ensuring it is free to call from all landline and mobile.[9] This partnership won the Charity Times Corporate Partnership Award in 2003 and the Voluntary Sector Excellence Award for Corporate Partnership in 2006.[10] In 2003, Get Connected developed an email service in order to make their help more accessible to young people with speaking or hearing impairments. One-to-one help via live webchat was launched in 2006 and consequently won the ICT Hub Award for Delivering Social and Environmental Benefits in 2007.[3] Get Connected has an ongoing partnership with The Carphone Warehouse. Another corporate partnership is with Merrill Lynch. A number of other corporate supporters with who Get Connected have developed relationships, such as The Finsbury Group, Eatsleepthink Design and HH Associates help by either pro bono services or gifts in kind, such as printing and design, media space and online coverage.[11] Get Connected and Eatsleepthink Design won a Corporate Community Involvement Award in 2008.[12] Get Connected also receives support of numerous corporate foundations, including Vodafone UK Foundation, Lloyds TSB Foundations and KPMG Foundation, and trusts, such as Children in Need, The Dulverton Trust, The Sylvia Adams Charitable Trust, Volant Charitable Trust, and Help a London Child.[13] Other supporters of Get Connected include Girls Get Connected, a women’s networking initiative. It hosts a variety of networking events that enable its members to make contact with other like-minded business women, whilst also raising funds for Get Connected.[14] Other supporters include Get Connected’s “Best Friend” Daniel Radcliffe.[15]