Supportline 179 got over 16,000 calls last year

More than 104,000 genuine calls were received by Supportline 179 within Agenzija Appogg since it started operating 10 years ago.

Last year alone the supportline received a staggering 22,250 calls, 16,501 of which were deemed as genuine, coming from people who were seeking help.

Over the past five years, the supportline has had its fair share of people phoning to play a joke and a total of 3,958 hoax calls were registered. Such calls were not accounted for before 2001.

Since 2001 there have also been more than 25,000 callers who hang up and 7,871 wrong numbers.

In 2005 the supportline received 724 hoax calls, while more than 3,400 callers hung up and there were 1,576 wrong numbers.

The supportline service started operating in January 1996 and until 2000 it was open between 9 a.m. and midday and from 4 p.m. to midnight. In 2000, it ran between 8 a.m. and midnight.

Ninety volunteers man the supportline, which started operating around the clock in October 2002. Stefania Sacco, supportline 179 service area leader, said all volunteers remain anonymous to callers.

"They use fictitious names, for their own protection," she said. Even the place from where they operate is kept under wraps.

Rose (not her real name) is one of the longest-serving volunteers, having started working with supportline since its inception.

Together with other volunteers, she attended a rigorous course on how to deal with callers and the myriad problems they call about. "One of the problems is that the caller is on the other end of the line, and we miss out on the body language, making it difficult to determine the severity of the case," she said.

Despite the training, getting to work is not an easy task. "In the beginning it was a shock every time the phone rang, even though I was there to answer the phone and help people," Rose said.

Initially, every call used to affect her emotionally. "I used to go home and wonder what had happened to the people I had spoken to over the phone. But in time I realised that once I finished work I needed to continue with my life," she said.

Suicide calls are the most serious for Rose, who has dealt with two in the 10 years she has been working at the supportline.

Calls related to domestic violence come a close second in seriousness. Sometimes such cases require quick thinking from the volunteer answering the phone, who needs to gauge the urgency of the situation.

The police are called in for very urgent cases, after obtaining the caller's consent, like when a female caller expresses fear of imminent abuse by her partner, Ms Sacco said, adding that the volunteers do not leave the call centre to do this.

If a victim of domestic violence is not in imminent danger, the volunteer encourages her to seek help.

Calls revolving around child abuse are given high priority. Ms Sacco said the supportline gets a minimal number of calls from the children themselves, but quite a number from adults about child abuse.

"While all cases of child abuse are given importance, when we get a call from a child we treat it with much greater care. The situation must be really serious for a child to make the call," she said.

All callers have the right to remain anonymous, and in cases of child abuse, their report is investigated. However, this is not the case with the reporting of abuse among adults.

"We cannot intervene in a case of an adult who has been abused unless the victim comes forward to seek help. In cases of domestic violence, it is the victim who has to come forward, unless it is a life or death situation or children are involved," Ms Sacco explained.

However, anonymity is respected, and the supportline does not have an ID caller to identify where a call is coming from. A few years ago, in certain cases of emergency, calls could be traced but this was no longer possible due to the Data Protection Act.

"Sometimes people hang up and we have no means of contacting them again," she pointed out.

Rose said the volunteers try to get as much information about the caller as possible early on in the conversation, especially if they believe the caller is suicidal.

Although the helpline can be accessed from any landline, including public telephones without a telephone card or coins, it is not accessible through mobile phones. While all calls are free for the caller, the system does not allow calls from mobile phones as yet.

While all the volunteers are there to assist people, they too need help. Volunteers can seek psychological help if a call disturbs them, and there is also a support group during which they discuss difficult cases.