ESTHER RANTZEN said yesterday she hopes a new ChildLine phone bank will help more than 16,000 distressed Merseyside youngsters a year.

The child welfare campaigner opened the unit yesterday at the NSPCC’s Hargreaves Centre, in Everton.

She said 16,000 young people from the city region spoke to a ChildLine counsellor in 2007. But it is feared more needed help because only half of all calls to ChildLine can be answered due to a shortage of funds.

If its target of having more than 70 Liverpool volunteers manning phones at the centre on Great Homer Street by 2009 is met, 75% of children should be able to get through.

ChildLine says it chose Liver- pool for its latest base because so many Liverpudlians were saying they wanted to volunteer.

Asked to describe the typical child in Liverpool whom she imagined would call, Esther said: “I think he would be a boy whose dad got drunk last night and hit his mum and when he tried to protect his mum, hit him.

“He’s ringing because he loves his mum – he doesn’t want anything to happen to his family but he wants some way to keep his younger sister and his mum safe.”

Last year, 2,000 Merseyside children rang ChildLine to talk about problems with bullies and 1,600 to discuss physical and sexual abuse they were suffering.

Liverpool counsellors will take calls from across the country but the charity’s technology will push Merseyside calls towards the Hargreaves Centre.

The unit has already recruited 19 volunteers and is looking to train a team of 75.

Mark Tobin, ChildLine’s North West services manager, said this was because the city was both a “hot-spot” for calls and because there was a ready supply of volunteer counsellors.

Mr Tobin said: “We only open where we know we can get volunteers.

“But I don’t believe young people in Merseyside are experiencing more difficult issues than elsewhere.”

Esther, who is ChildLine’s president and an NSPCC trustee, added: “There’s a lot of human suffering, I know that, but I also know that the vast majority of children here are loved, prized and are full of confidence and also much charm.”

Volunteers are put through ten three-hour training sessions and they do not need any experience or specific qualifications.

Children who want to talk to a trained counsellor should call 0800 1111 free.

Anyone interested in becoming a counsellor can call 0844 892 0264 or click on www.childline.org.uk for more information.

benschofield