Frontline Co-ordinator’s Report
Survive’s Frontline offers a range of
services provided and maintained by myself and Frontline volunteers.
The revised post of Frontline Co-ordinator began in April 2002, with
Frontline services previously being provided by three volunteers. The
first few months of the year were spent auditing and creating policies
and procedures to ensure our contact with callers is professional and
ethical.
Helpline and
Answerphone
The Helpline has run on a Thursday
evening throughout the year, with an answerphone at other times that is
responded to daily Monday to Friday. Until December, this was staffed
by one person on a Thursday evening. Since the first intake of
volunteers completed their training, two lines have been open which has
led to a large increase in the number and variety of calls we receive.
There are now six active volunteers on the Helpline.
Information
The information service is an ongoing
project to ensure callers can get a good range of accurate information
on a wide variety of different issues.
Book Loan
The book loan service has expanded
greatly, with now over 100 books available for callers to our service
and professionals, ranging on subjects from child sexual abuse to more
general subjects such as assertiveness and stress.
Self Help Groups
Unfortunately no self help groups
have been run during the year, due to a lack of time and the need for
experienced and competent facilitators. However, plans are now underway
for self help groups to begin in early 2004.
Training
Internal: Two Foundation Training
Programmes have been delivered for people wishing to volunteer on the
Helpline, and six volunteers have successfully completed this training.
The training has been very time consuming in terms of planning,
recruiting volunteers, and delivering the training, but also very
enjoyable and worthwhile. A large focus of this year has been
increasing volunteer numbers so that two lines can be open on the
Helpline and hopefully we can look towards opening for more nights, in
order to make Survive more accessible. Volunteers have commented that
the training has been “very professional and enjoyable.”
External: Training has been given to
Victim Support volunteers working with people who have been abused.
Volunteers
Thanks very much to all our
volunteers. Without them, the Frontline would not be able to provide
our services.