Every year we survey our child helpline members to get comprehensive regional and global pictures of the issues facing children and young people. Our new report presents the data received from our child helpline members around the world relating to 2019. We also take an early look at some of the information that has started to become available in 2020 on how the Covid-19 pandemic has impacted children and young people, and the work of child helplines.
Our 2019 data collection sadly confirms violence as a main issue for concern. Violence is either the first or second most frequent reason for contacting a child helpline around the world, and one out of every four times a child or young person contacts a child helpline, it is because of a concern related to violence.
Another large issue for concern in 2019 was mental health. More than a quarter of the contacts made to child helplines globally in 2019 concerned a mental health issue. Issues of accessibility of various services, for example education or essential needs, were also among the top five reasons for children and young people making contact with the child helplines in most regions.
A key finding from our 2019 data collection relates to children at home. According to the data, the majority of the issues that children and young people wanted to bring up concerned something happening inside their own homes (more than half of the contacts globally). Most children and young people appear to currently be living with their parent or primary caregiver, and the majority of issues that children and young people wanted to talk about was also in some way connected to their parent or primary caregiver. In the context of the current Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown measures implemented in many countries around the world, this finding emphasises even more strongly the crucial role played by child helplines. By their very nature, child helplines are able to provide remote and easily accessible services for children and young people in need of support or protection.
You can read our report online here.
You can download a printable, page-by-page version of our report here.
