Frontline  Co-ordinator’s Report

The Frontline offers a range of services, provided by the Frontline co-ordinator and Frontline volunteers.

Helpline and Answerphone
The Helpline continues to run on Thursday evenings, with an answerphone service that takes messages throughout the week, responded to daily Monday-Friday. The Helpline has been staffed by two volunteers with an on-call supervisor available for support and supervision over the evening and debriefing at the end of the shift. The on-call supervisor’s role is a new one which was created this year and is shared between the Frontline Co-ordinator and a sessional worker with experience of working on helplines and who has gone through the Foundation Training Programme. There are now seven volunteers on the Helpline, and one of these has undertaken further training in order to be able to respond to answerphone messages during the week. Many thanks to  the volunteers for their time and commitment which allows Survive to provide this much used service.

Information
This is an ongoing project and aims to provide callers, staff and  volunteers with accurate information on a range of subjects.

Book Loan
This service has been well used within Survive and by callers and other professionals who contact us. It offers a wide range of books on different subjects around child sexual abuse and other self help materials.

Self help groups
No groups have run during this year due to a lack of time and experienced facilitators. However, groups have now been advertised and will be starting in June 2004. These will provide space for 6-8 women who wish to talk and receive support in a group format.

Advocacy/1-1 support
This Frontline service has offered callers the chance to have someone accompany them to appointments, and offer support beforehand, for example when reporting abuse to the police or appointments with doctors or dentists.

Training
Three new volunteers have been recruited and trained for the Helpline and one existing volunteer has been trained to respond to answerphone messages. Volunteers and staff have also had the opportunity to attend training sessions on Shame and Guilt and on Drugs and Dual Diagnosis.