Remarkable People

Help Stop Youth Suicide

About Us

Kids Helpline is a free, 24 hour counselling service for young people aged 5-25 years. Counselling is offered by phone, email and over the web.

Counsellors respond to more than 6,000 calls each week about issues ranging from relationship breakdowns and bullying, to sexual abuse, homelessness, suicidal thoughts, and drug and alcohol use.

The service aims to empower young people by assisting them to:

• Develop options
• Identify and understand the consequences of a particular course of action
• Facilitate more productive relationships with family and friends, and
• Provide information on local support services.

Kids Helpline counsellors are fully qualified professionals who undergo additional accredited training at Kids Helpline.

Kids Helpline is a service of BoysTown

Who We Are

Kids Helpline officially opened on 25 March, 1991. More than 3,200 young people called the first day, and despite a number of hitches 122,000 calls were logged in the first 17 days.

Within a year of opening, Kids Helpline had answered 75,000 calls - this is the GABBA sporting ground filled twice! By Child Protection Week in October 1993, it had registered one million calls.

Kids Helpline expanded state by state across Australia, and became a national service in 1993. Email counselling started in 1999 and the web counselling service was launched in May 2000.

Since 1991, Kids Helpline has answered more than 5.2 million telephone calls and online contacts.

Kids Helpline is a part of BoysTown - a charity established by the De La Salle Brothers.

About Us

The International Red Cross is an international humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide which was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering, without any discrimination based on nationality, race, sex, religious beliefs, class or political opinions.

The movement consists of several distinct organizations that are legally independent from each other, but are united within the movement through common basic principles, objectives, symbols, statutes and governing organs. The movement's parts are:

• The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a private humanitarian institution founded in 1863 in Geneva, Switzerland, by Henry Dunant. Its 25-member committee has a unique authority under international humanitarian law to protect the life and dignity of the victims of international and internal armed conflicts. The ICRC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on three occasions (in 1917, 1944 and 1963).
• The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) was founded in 1919 and today it coordinates activities between the 186 National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies within the Movement. On an international level, the Federation leads and organizes, in close cooperation with the National Societies, relief assistance missions responding to large-scale emergencies. The International Federation Secretariat is based in Geneva, Switzerland. In 1963, the Federation (then known as the League of Red Cross Societies) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the ICRC.
• National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies exist in nearly every country in the world. Currently 186 National Societies are recognized by the ICRC and admitted as full members of the Federation. Each entity works in its home country according to the principles of international humanitarian law and the statutes of the international Movement. Depending on their specific circumstances and capacities, National Societies can take on additional humanitarian tasks that are not directly defined by international humanitarian law or the mandates of the international Movement. In many countries, they are tightly linked to the respective national health care system by providing emergency medical services.