Childline Hopes To Raise £50m To Roll Out Digital Services

The NSPCC’s Childline is planning to roll out new services allowing young people to contact councillors online and through mobile by 2010.

The plans come as the children’s charity launches a fundraising drive to raise £50m over the next three years to roll out its counselling services. The charity has created a new fundraising site to enable supporters to register their donations.

It aims to roll out its current NSPCC offering There4me across the UK. There4me, which launched around five years ago, is only available for young people in the North East.

The site includes message boards and an agony aunt facility called Ask Sam.

The NSPCC also plans to allow young people to be able to contact Childline through mobile, sending text messages to counsellors.

Emily Knee, senior digital account manager for NSPCC, said, “Children are so digitally aware now and we plan for children to contact Childline using any medium.”

The charity already has profiles on social networks Bebo, Habbo and Piczo.