Rantzen appeals for more volunteers at newest ChildLine centre

Mar 10 2008 by Laura Sharpe, Liverpool Daily Post

ESTHER RANTZEN will be in Liverpool today to celebrate the launch of the city’s brand new ChildLine centre.

As the ChildLine president and NSPCC trustee, Esther will officially open the helpline’s newest base at the NSPCC’s Hargreaves Centre on Great Homer Street, Everton. Liverpool is the thirteenth place in England and Wales to have a ChildLine base and a number of people have already come forward to volunteer.

The helpline hopes to gather 75 volunteers from across Merseyside who will be able to offer help, support and advice to children and young people who may feel that they have nowhere to turn.

It has already recruited 19 volunteers, who have been trained to counsel children and young people.

Another wave of recruitment will see further training in April, to ensure thousands of children’s calls can be answered.

Esther said: “The opening of ChildLine at the Hargreaves Centre will give desperate children and young people in Merseyside someone to turn to.

“It’s fantastic that there has already been a positive response to our appeals for volunteers in the city but we urgently need more.”

The Safe Place Appeal – which was launched in 2004 to build the Hargreaves Centre in Liverpool – needs to raise running costs for the next decade to ensure ChildLine and other children's projects can continue to run.

Mark Tobin, ChildLine services manager, said: "It's fantastic that we're now able to help children from our base at the Hargreaves Centre and I would like to thank all our supporters and volunteers for their continuing generosity."