Lifeline is there for people during their hardest moments.
Lifeline lives up to its name, providing a desperately needed human connection to people when they are experiencing their darkest moments. Its main mission is to create an Australia free of suicide and it is currently Australia’s largest crisis support service, receiving more than one million calls and over 200,000 texts and chats each year. It’s the place that people can reach out to when they don’t have anyone to talk to.
Declan Forrester has been volunteering with Lifeline for seven years.
Volunteers like him keep Lifeline going. Declan currently volunteers as a Crisis Supporter doing 4-hour shifts where he takes calls from people experiencing crisis. Declan also volunteers mentoring students who are training to become Crisis Supporters.
Other volunteers who work with Declan have described him as a gentle, well spoken, empathetic person who is also very clever. Declan is in the final stages of a PhD in psychology and works as a teaching associate and researcher at Southern Cross University.
Declan’s dedication to volunteering for Lifeline has had a big impact on his local community. Declan has taken on an additional role for lifeline, serving as an ambassador where he teaches. There, he has encouraged and supported many other psychology students to become Lifeline Crisis Support volunteers. The increase in volunteer numbers has enabled Lifeline to take more calls and support more people in crisis.
(Image) Declan working on the phones.
Declan has found being an ambassador an easy role. He describes that the work he’s done with Lifeline, while challenging, is one of the most rewarding experiences of his life. He began volunteering with Lifeline wanting to make a difference in the lives of vulnerable people and develop his clinical skills in psychology. Both things have happened, and he passionately recommends the experience to others.
“I was quite shy when I started volunteering at Lifeline North Coast. Volunteering as a Crisis Supporter and later as a Student Mentor has given me confidence, it’s improved my ability to build rapport with people and support people in distress. It’s also just made me a better human, where I really talk to and check in with people I know or meet. That’s what being a Crisis Supporter gives you.”
“It’s quite humbling the difference you can make volunteering with Lifeline. Recently, I was in the Lifeline Centre talking to a group of three other volunteers. I realised that they were all male psychology students who knew me as their lecturer and had taken on board my encouragement to come and volunteer at Lifeline. It was a beautiful full circle moment to see how, just by talking about my experiences, I had influenced others to make a difference too.”
(Image) Declan receiving the Mary Parsissons Outstanding Volunteer of the Year award from Coffs Harbour Centre Supervisor Lyn Anderson (on the left) and Lifeline CEO Angela Martin (on the right).
Lifeline is a national charity providing Australians who are experiencing emotional distress access to 24-hour crisis support, suicide prevention, mental health, and domestic and family violence prevention services. For more than 60 years, Lifeline has been a leader in advocating for an Australia free of suicide. Lifeline exists to ensure that no person in Australia has to face their toughest moments alone. Lifeline is supporting SDG 3 Good health and wellbeing.
For more information about Lifeline visit their website.
