Media Partnership a Lifeline for Crisis Chat Service
3 May 2012 at 11:23 am
A national news website, news.com.au, has partnered with Lifeline Online to raise money for a new crisis chat service.
The Buy Time for Lifeline fundraising campaign will see the news website’s readers encouraged to make a donation to help fund Lifeline’s new permanent online crisis support chat service during May.
Described as an Australian first, the new Crisis Support Chat service will be officially launched on May 8 2012, following a successful pilot in 2011. It will operate from 8pm to 12am AEST, 7 days a week, and offer users a one-to-one online session with a trained crisis supporter that is anonymous, confidential and non-judgemental.
The editorial section on news.com.au will include interviews and personal insights from prominent Australians including; Steve Bastoni, Patrick McGorry, Ben Pobjie and Joe Roff.
In addition, the campaign will be supported by advertising across the News network to raise community awareness of emotional health and wellbeing issues and inspire readers to make a financial donation.
News.co.au editor, Luke McIlveen said the Buy Time for Lifeline campaign was launching at a time when there was still significant community stigma around mental health issues and suicide even though the latter was the leading cause of death for Australians under the age of 44 in 2010.
He added that major news sites such as news.com.au have an opportunity to change community sentiment.
“News.com.au is committed to supporting Lifeline and helping them fund new avenues for Australians to get the crisis support they need. With the overwhelming number of users of the online chat service expected to be under 25, it’s our readers and their social networks that the service will be supporting.
“News.com.au is encouraging its readers to make a donation of $31 which represents the cost to Lifeline to provide an Australian in need of crisis support with an hour long one-to-one confidential chat session that may be life-saving.
“When you think about it, $31 isn’t much. It’s the cost of two movie tickets or a week’s worth of takeaway lattes. It’s small change when compared with a life”.
“Every day there is a growing need for support online, as more Australians seek support through a medium that is familiar to them,” said Lifeline’s National Patron, John Brogden.
“Lifeline’s capacity to sustain and enhance the new Crisis Support Chat service will be dependent on securing $750,000 in additional donations each year. Without the support of news.com.au and the News network we would not be able to reach out to so many Australians at this critical time.
To view the campaign visit www.news.com.au/features/onehour-onelife
Donations can be made at www.buytimeforlifeline.org.au
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