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Championing children for more than 18 years -
View a timeline of ChildLine's work since 1986
In the spring of 1986, the BBC TV consumer programme That's Life! , presented by Esther Rantzen, appealed to viewers for their help in conducting a survey on child abuse. The BBC also ran a helpline for 24 hours after the programme for adults and children who wished to call. The lines were jammed with children who insisted on remaining anonymous, but confided details of terrible cruelty and sexual abuse.
Adult survivors tell their stories
Three thousand adults (of whom 90 per cent were women) completed a BBC questionnaire, in which 90 per cent of them recounted, mostly for the first time, the experience of sexual abuse in their childhood. A special Childwatch team was set up to read the questionnaires and make a programme on child abuse. They found that children today were still suffering as children had in the past. The suffering described by adult survivors of sexual abuse in childhood was echoed by today's children. Adults and children told the same story - cruelty happens at home, most abusers are members of their own family, they have no-one to turn to, they think no-one will ever believe them if they ask for help. Yet they felt able to confide in an unseen, unknown telephone counsellor.
The next step
The Childwatch team then met with child care professionals from both the statutory and the voluntary sectors - including the NSPCC, Kidscape, Great Ormond Street Hospital and social services departments - to discuss how to establish a permanent free telephone helpline, which would provide a way of comforting and advising those who could not be reached in any other way.
The launch of ChildLine
The helpline would be open 24 hours a day. In October 1986, a BBC special programme on child abuse called Childwatch launched ChildLine. BT provided ChildLine with offices, and with a simple, memorable telephone number - 0800 1111. The logo - a smiling telephone - was shown on the programme. The response that first night and subsequent nights exceeded all predictions. ChildLine quickly took root in the minds of children as 'their' line.
ChildLine today
On the night of the launch, 50,000 children tried to ring ChildLine. Since that night, ChildLine has counselled more than one million children.
The demand continues at a very high level - approximately 4,000 children call ChildLine every day. The organisation has expanded very rapidly to try to meet the needs of the children who call. And yet we are still only able to answer about 2,300 of our callers every day.
ChildLine now has counselling centres in London, Liverpool, Nottingham, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Manchester, Swansea, Prestatyn, Foyle, Leeds, Belfast, Exeter and Birmingham. To learn more about ChildLine around the UK .
Copyright © 2006 NSPCC - All rights reserved. National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Weston House, 42
Curtain Road, London EC2A 3NH. Incorporated by Royal Charter. Registered charity number 216401. NSPCC, charity registered in Scotland, charity number SC037717.