Get Connected is a helpline charity for young people who have problems but do not know where to turn. Their free and confidential, telephone, email and webchat service offers support, advice and links to organisations where young people can get specific help to their troubles. Be it a pupil getting bullied at school, or a teenager who has runaway from home and needs a safe place to sleep, volunteers can put them directly in touch with the right people and the right places.

Set up in 1999 by a partnership between the Suzy Lamplugh Trust and the British Transport Police, Get Connected became a registered charity in 2000, acting a link between the young person on the street and the various support services available. More than that though, the charity also aims to empower the young person so that they can make an informed decision as to what is the best solution to their problem.

The majority of people who use the service are under 25, and of those mainly teenagers, but almost 10 per cent of callers are adults who are worried about a young person, while the breadth of issues the helpline deals with is vast and the charity now has 100 trained volunteers answering calls.

More recently however, email conversations and webchats have grown in popularity – last year alone saw their webchat service double. They started the email service in 2003 and the webchats in 2006 and with more and more young people choosing to seek help online, the charity is having to evolve constantly.

Emma Insley, Get Connected chief executive, said: “We really believe that more and more young people, who would never have called us in the past, are turning to us online. They actually feel able to get the support they need online without the difficulties of talking about their problems to someone on the phone. It’s the first step to them getting help and I think it's proving to be very important.”

An interesting trend has also come to light in the types of calls they get online versus the telephone line. “Calls about abuse feature much more heavily on webchats than they do over the telephone. It’s a very emotive subject that youngsters feel much more comfortable talking about on email,” Insley says.

More specifically, calls about self-harm account for 20 per cent of webchats compared to only three per cent of phone calls, so having this more anonymous form of contact is proving to be a vital source of help.

The charity does not get any government funding, but has a number of supporters that help raise money, notably The Carphone Warehouse, who support the organisation in the form of gifts in kind – an office, furnishings, stationery, computers, IT support, helpline equipment, phone bills and utility bills.

Insley said: “This is an invaluable asset – without it we wouldn’t be able to function. Also, it’s location in central London means we can attract the high number of volunteers that we need.”

The phone company also co-organises an annual auction, which this year is hoped to raise more than £200,000, as well as raising money through Carphone Warehouse shops, staff and other fundraising events. Get Connected also won a Charity of the Year Partnership with Merrill Lynch for 2008 and has support from a number of corporate foundations, including Vodafone UK, Lloyds TSB and KPMG.

Measuring Get Connected’s social benefit is difficult just because the nature of the organisation is confidential. “It’s difficult to monitor our progress. All our calls are confidential so we don’t store any information and we don’t follow-up calls. We do encourage feedback from callers and have had some good response,” Insley says.

Get Connected also runs a mystery shopping scheme where a person is paid to contact the helpline to test the service and make sure its operating at the highest level – often dealing with vulnerable youngsters, it is necessary the helpline gets things right. The organisations that Get Connected refers young people to are also sent a questionnaire to ascertain how suitable the referral was and whether it would have been better directed to another organisation.

The charity sees its future as one of growth as it seeks to reach more and more young people. Earlier this year Get Connected started regional schemes in Leeds and Manchester, with representatives visiting schools and youth clubs to talk about the helpline and forging links with social services and other local support organisations.

www.getconnected.org.uk/charity