Help and Advocacy
Our helpline is answered by trained listeners who are all LGB or Trans. They understand the issues, and are non-judgemental and friendly. It is normally staffed during office hours, Monday to Friday.
Confidentiality
We treat all calls as confidential. Most important of all, we will not Out anyone, whatever their age. In the course of many thousand calls over seven years we have taken many calls from young people, and we have never Outed anyone of any age.
The Helpline and Advocacy team is supervised by the Executive Director (Michael). Michael provides general policy and procedural guidance when needed, but the Helpline and Advocacy team are not permitted to disclose personal information about callers or advocacy cases to the Director or to anyone else.
The only thing that might make confidentiality difficult for us would be if there were serious and immediate danger of harm to a young person, to a member of staff, or to a third party. In seven years, that issue has been very rare, and it has never once caused problems around breaking anyone's confidence. We hope it never will.
Our Project
Over the last seven years we have taken thousands of calls on an immensely wide range of topics. Some of them are from people who feel isolated and just want to talk to someone who understands what it is to be LGB or Trans. Other calls come from people who are experiencing very serious difficulties in their lives. Some are from parents with LGB or Trans children, some are about Coming Out, some are about crime issues. We've heard a lot. We've managed to help a lot too.
Community Advocacy
If you like, we can work with you to try to make sure your complaint is listened to and acted upon. We have years of experience, and we can certainly make a difference. To find out more about our Community Advocacy service, go to our Advocacy page.
Volunteers
Like all community helplines we need, and we value, our volunteers. If you are LGB or Trans, and a good listener, and would like to put a few hours a month (or more) into helping us with the Helpline, have a look at our Volunteering page, and get in touch.
Our funders
Our Helpline and Advocacy services are funded in Cornwall, Devon, Plymouth and Torbay by the Big Lottery Fund, to whom many, many thanks!