Ask Sam

Hi there,

ChildLine wants to keep things anonymous and confidential wherever we can, but if we felt like you or someone else was in danger then we might need to get you help. We would do this by telling someone like the police or emergency services. The police can often find where someone is, but that’s not something ChildLine can do without the police. Read our confidentiality promise to find out more about what kind of situations we might need to get help for.

We want you to talk to our counsellors because it’s always better to share difficult feelings. We understand that it takes a lot of trust to talk about personal and private things with someone else and we take that trust really seriously. We’re not here to trick you into telling us something so that we can tell someone else.

ChildLine doesn’t think any call we get is a “prank” – even if what you’re saying to the counsellor isn’t real, we will be here to listen. We understand that sometimes making a call to us about something that isn’t real can make it easier to call back another time when there is something you need to talk about.

I hope that answers your questions. You can get more information about ChildLine and you can always ask the counsellors themselves - they’ll be happy to talk about how they work.

Take care,
Sam