Telephone Helpline

801 801 1177 Telephone Helpline for the psychosocial health of children and adolescents

Helpline 801 801 1177 is the first helpline in Greece that deals with all issues relating to the psychosocial health of children and adolescents. It is operated by mental health professionals, and is available to children, adolescents, parents, educators, other health and mental health professionals and anyone that may be interested. It began operation in 2005. It is a helpline open to children and adolescents, as well as parents, educators, mental health professionals and anyone that may have a concern about young peoples' mental health. It is staffed entirely by child psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and mental health visitors who directly respond to the calls. It operates daily except on Sundays, and the caller pays the cost of a local call. The hours of operation are 9.30am - 20.30 pm on weekdays, and 9.30 pm - 14.00 pm on Saturdays. Calls are anonymous.

The goals of the helpline is primary prevention concerning the mental health of children and adolescents, through early identification of problems, psychological support, guidance and appropriate referral to centres for further intervention when needed, through the following:

counselling parents and guardians on child and adolescent mental health issues. informing specialists in the field of health and mental health, as well as educators. raising awareness among the community. helping callers have a positive experience with mental health professionals. supporting the request and encouraging the caller to use the healthy mechanisms of his/her personality. depending on the case, diagnosing and identifying the needs for services. directing/ orienting/ referring to the appropriate help services. recording the demands and needs identified by relevant research, the results of which may contribute to a better orientation toward the needs of children and adolescents nowadays. This concerns both the mental health professionals and the responsible public authorities and legislative bodies.

An equally important goal is to research the data collected from the calls via a computerized system, to produce results that would inform professionals, as well as governmental bodies, about the emerging needs in the field of mental health of youngsters. Apart from continuing to respond to the calls on a daily basis, we are expanding the activities of the helplines in the following domains: Training of volunteers Collaboration with the Greek Ministry of Education International collaboration with other European countries in order to create a common protocol for the development of helplines concerning children and adolescents Raising public awareness and community education Targeting specifically children and adolescents through our publicity campaign 23 Kifisias, 115 23 Athens, Greece e-mail: grammi1177@epsype.gr