“Hello, this is What’s Up. You’re talking with Sally. How can I help?”

 

 

It is 8:24pm on a Wednesday night. 0800WHATSUP counsellor Sally started her shift at 7:00pm and will be on duty until midnight, as she is every Wednesday. She glances at Hemi, her colleague, nearby. He is on a call. So are Liz, Jim, and Annabelle.  

“Umm. I don’t know how to say this”, says the voice on the phone, with a bit of a giggle. Could be a young girl, maybe 12 years old. It can be hard to tell on the phone.

“That’s OK”, says Sally. “Take your time”.

More than 600,000 calls were made to 0800WHATSUP in 2006.

 

“Well, um, I called you guys the other day”.

“OK, go on.”

“Well, I was being a bit of a dick – you know, fooling around and stuff?”

“Yeah, lots of kids like to ring up for a bit of a laugh,” Sally replies.

“Um, well, I am really sorry that I wasted your time – and there is something I really want to talk about”.

“OK”, says Sally. “Don’t worry about what happened the other day. What is it you want to talk about?”

It’s actually an 11 year old boy called Justin, from a small town up north. His friends had put him up to the prank call a few days ago and Justin was feeling bad about it.

In fact, he was feeling bad about quite a few things that his friends were encouraging him to do – like smoking, sneaking beer from his parents’ cupboard, and shouting taunts at a girl in the town who has some sort of disability. What bothers Justin most right now is that today they were daring each other to steal stuff from the local shop.

Justin knows what they are doing is wrong, but he doesn’t know how to deal with his friends. He doesn’t want to lose their respect and he is afraid that if he tells anyone about what is going on, they will turn against him.

This story is made up, but it is true all the same. 0800WHATSUP counsellors answered an average of 429 calls every day during 2006 – over 150,000 calls during the entire year. But this was only a fraction of the more than 600,000 calls made to 0800WHATSUP in that time.

0800WHATSUP treats all callers with respect – as with Justin, prank callers may be building relationships, testing the waters so they feel confident about opening up. It works with kids on learning how to solve problems using their own resources – their own skills, supportive friends and family, teachers, whatever and whoever will help put things right. The kids learn that there is always something they can do. There is no need to feel helpless, hopeless and alone with their worries.

Justin doesn’t like smoking. He hates feeling guilty about stealing things from his parents and he definitely does not want to steal stuff from a shop. He feels much clearer about these feelings now that he has spoken to Sally.

Justin decides he will tell his Mum and Dad about what is going on and then he will tell his friends that he wants to hang out with them, but won’t do the things that make him feel bad any more. He plans to tell them it isn’t right and if they don’t want to be his friends after that, then he reckons he can deal with it somehow. There are other kids that he can make friends with.

Sally invites him to call back next Wednesday about the same time and let her know how he is getting on. She hopes to hear good news.

“Hello, What’s Up. You’re talking with Sally. How can I help?”

 


Anyone in New Zealand aged between 5 and 18 years can speak to a paid, trained and supervised professional counsellor on 0800WHATSUP (0800 942 8787) between noon and midnight, seven days a week.

  • www.whatsup.co.nz

ASB Community Trust has supported 0800WHATSUP with grants totalling $114,000 since its launch in 2001.