HOPELINE247 FAQs
You can contact us at HOPELINE247 if you are experiencing thoughts of suicide and need support keeping safe from taking steps to end your life.
You can contact us if you have concerns for someone you feel may be experiencing thoughts of suicide and need support in having safe conversations around suicide.
You can contact us to de-brief after supporting someone with their thoughts of suicide.
You can contact HOPELINE247 via phone, text, email and webchat.
Call us on 0800 068 41471
Text us on 07860 039967
Email us at pat@papyrus-uk.org
When our webchat function is available, a purple “Live Chat” icon will appear on our website
Our phone service is open 24 hours per day, every day of the year including weekends and bank holidays.
Our text and email service have the same opening times but we do highlight that this is not an immediate response service and it may take up to 24 hours to receive a reply.
An icon will appear on our website when our webchat service is available. If you cannot see the icon the service may be busy or unavailable at that time.
Yes, HOPELINE247 is a helpline operated by PAPYRUS.
HOPELINE247 is a suicide prevention service that offers support and advice to young people up to the age of 35
You can call our service on 0800 068 4141 for support, you can also text or email to get support and you can find those details on the PAPYRUS website.
We can only support people in the UK because of our intervention policy. If we do need to intervene by reaching out to the emergency services for that extra support while supporting a young person then we can only do this with the UK police, we would not be able to do this outside the UK.
If you don’t live in the UK and you are worried for someone that does, you can still call us as we will be able to give you the right kinds of advice and signposting.
Our charity was founded by parents who had all lost their children to suicide, aged up to 35. We also know that suicide is the biggest killer of young people under the age of 35 and this is why we focus our life-saving efforts here.
If you call our service and are over the age remit, we can either support you for that one call while also finding a suitable alterative service that may be able to support you further.
We are a short-term service because we work on keeping safe for now. We explore what may be impacting on people’s lives and making suicide feel like an option for them.
Once we explore what is impacting on people’s thoughts of suicide and share information on how to keep safe with our callers, we work to empower callers and help them to find the strength and confidence to engage with the long-term support services that may be available or that we have signposted them too.
A team of trained advisers are here to support you to stay safe from acting on thoughts of suicide, they will listen without judgement and give you advice and tips. They are also trained to provide you with support if you are worried about someone else in your life. All of our team are paid professionals and are employed by PAPYRUS. Every adviser undergoes an induction period and relevant training, including ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training).
A HOPELINE247 suicide prevention adviser is someone who:
- Will ask about thoughts of suicide
- Will take you and what you have to say seriously
- Wont judge you
- Will give you a safe space to talk about things that might be impacting on your thoughts of suicide
- Won’t be shocked by anything you say
- You can trust
- Will advise and support you with your thoughts of suicide
- Will want to help you to keep yourself safe by developing a safety plan with you
HOPELINE247 advisers are people who each come with their own backgrounds, cultures, family and friends. They may have differing sexuality, ethnicity or physical and mental health than you, however, the focus will always remain on you. We understand that you may ask to know more about the advisers and their experiences, especially if you feel like it may help you. However, HOPELINE247 advisers will not talk about themselves, or answer personal questions as they want the conversation to be about you.
All our advisers are trained to give the same quality support to everyone they speak to. We manage all telephone calls, texts, emails and webchats as a team, which means you probably won’t speak to the same adviser if you reconnect with us. We are unable to accept requests to speak with the same adviser.
No, we don’t take bookings or appointments, just give us a contact us via call, text, email or webchat
No. HOPELINE247 does not offer a face to face service. We offer support by phone, text, email and webchat.
Our aim is to provide a safe, non-judgmental space to talk openly about suicide and any plans you may have. The adviser will ask if you have a plan for suicide, we will discuss with you ways in which you can disable this plan and keep yourself safe from suicide.
Of course, you can call us if you are having thoughts of suicide even if you don’t feel like you would act on them.
We are a service that can look at advising on how to distract from these thoughts of suicide but we can also look at what might be triggering these thoughts too.
We have a range of help and advice resources on the PAPYRUS website, such as coping strategies and distraction techniques, these can be really useful and can help our contacts to get themselves to a calm place.
Getting to a place of calm and being able to focus on a distraction can then empower you to keep yourself safe.
No. Our phones do not show numbers, we are an anonymous service which means that we cannot see any information.
However, we do have the ability to try to access the number or email address that you are contacting us from via an alternative system. This will only be accessed if we need to share information to keep you or someone else safe from harm or immediate risk. Your number is not freely available to anyone and your details are kept secure. We will always discuss with you where your information is being shared before doing so.
All this will be explained by an adviser at the start of your contact with us.
HOPELINE247 is a confidential and anonymous helpline, this means anything you share with us will not be shared outside of our helpline, however there may be exceptions to this rule and we may feel it necessary to share information if:
- You tell us that your life or someone else’s life is in danger
- We believe you or someone else are at serious risk of harm
- You tell us that you are harming another person or have plans to
- We are asked by the police or by a court of law
Advisers will always work with you, we will be open and honest and try to gain consent before sharing any information with anyone outside of our helpline such as emergency services, police or local social services.
Our full remit of service and confidentiality policy can be found here Confidentiality policy – Papyrus UK | Suicide Prevention Charity (papyrus-uk.org)
If you need immediate support the best way to ensure this gets to you as quickly as possible is for you to contact the emergency services directly. You will be able to speak to them quickly, giving them all of the important information they need, to get you help at the right time.
If you do not feel able to contact the emergency services yourself and we feel you need immediate support, we will be able to reach out to the police on your behalf, but we will ask for you to provide us with as much information as possible so they can help you quickly. This could be your telephone number, address, date of birth and your location. If you are not able to provide us any details we will still contact the police on your behalf with the information we have to try and get you the support you need and deserve. Sometimes we may not have vital information like you do and this can slow things down and you might not get the immediate help you deserve.
We will always talk openly with you first, giving you the options to make an informed decision to ensure you get the help you need.
We understand for some it can be difficult to pick up the phone to start the conversation, our team are trained to guide you through the phone call. Different people may start the conversation in different ways, but all you need to do is say ‘hello’ or ‘hello, I need to talk to someone’ when you pick up the phone and our advisers will take it from there. Usually we will start by asking if you have called our service before, and whether you are calling because you’re having thoughts of suicide.
Our advisers will tend to ask this question at the start of the call. Finding out what is impacting thoughts of suicide is a big step because we can be aware of this impact and put things in place to distract the trigger which will help to keep the caller safer.
Our aim is to support you to feel suicide safe for a time that feels manageable for you. It is always best to try and contact us before you feel completely overwhelmed with your thoughts to die. This would help both you and the adviser focus on what is important to help you overcome these thoughts.
If you did contact us in crisis then we would try to work with you in order that you felt able to stay safe or reach out for further support to help you with this.
The service we provide through our text and email platforms is limited. As we don’t have immediate response times to text and emails, it is not possible for us to support people in the same way as we would do over the phone.
If you call us we are able to work on safety plans with you to help you to stay safe from suicide for now, if this is something we feel maybe helpful, then we will encourage you to call so we can support you in the best way to stay safe.
If you don’t feel able to continue speaking, it’s okay. It’s up to you when you want to end the call. Just explain to the adviser that you don’t want to speak anymore, or that you need to go.
The adviser may ask you why you don’t feel able to continue speaking, or why you need to go, its up to you how much you tell them. If there is a problem with the support you’re receiving, its helpful if you can tell us so that we can try and find a solution to the problem.
If you want to continue the call, but for other reasons can’t, let the adviser know. They will ask if you would like to leave a name against your notes from the call so you can call back at a more convenient time and don’t have to repeat yourself on another call.
We will support anyone who contacts us. If we think that HOPELINE247 isn’t the right service for you, we will not immediately end that conversation. We will ask you more about what is going on for you so that we can support you to find a service that might be able to help you better.
We do our best to answer every call that comes through to us, but sometimes there may be times when all our lines are busy.
If you call and cannot get through you can either:
- Call us back in a few minutes to see if a line has become available
- Leave a voicemail message asking us to call you back, you will need to leave your number clearly for us. You do not need to leave a name if you do not wish to. We aim to return voicemail messages within an hour, however there are occasions when this may take a little longer.
- If your life is at immediate risk, you need to reach out to the emergency services on 999.
Please note, if you do not leave your number, or we cannot understand your phone number, unfortunately we may not be able to call you back.
The support that we offer via text and email is a little different to the support we can offer over the phone.
We will offer you some short-term emotional support, whilst also helping you to find services that might be able to provide you with more ongoing or specialist support.
If we feel that you need the full amount of support that we offer, we may encourage you to call or webchat with us.
The first time you contact us via text or email you will receive an automatic response straight away, this tells you about our service and our confidentiality policy.
To receive a response from an adviser it can take up to 24 hours but we do aim to have a quicker response time but it cannot be guaranteed.
Our text and email service has limits and it is not a crisis messenger service.
If your life is at immediate risk, then you need to reach out to the emergency services yourself by calling 999.
If you feel you need to speak with us more quickly then you can call us.
All advisers on HOPELINE247 are training to give advice and support to those who are concerned for others, this may be a student or pupil, a friend, a family member or your neighbour. When you call HOPELINE247 we will give you the same non-judgement space to express your concerns and what may be going on in the individual’s life that may be impacting on their thoughts of suicide. We will share advice on how to have safe and sensitive conversations about suicide and we will try to answer any queries you may have so you feel equipped and confident to have a conversation with the person you are worried about.
Yes, you can, but we have found over the years that its much better to call us for some advice and then let the person your worried about know what to expect when they decide to call us. They can then call us when they feel ready to open up and talk. Talking about suicide can be really scary and tough. And more often than not, when handing the phone over, the person with thoughts of suicide finds it hard to open up, even if you’ve left the room. It can be daunting enough being given the phone half way through any conversation, let alone one about suicide.
No. But they can call us for free on 0800 068 4141 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We’re unable to call someone without their permission.
No. But you can – or you can call NHS111 and they can help come to a decision with you. The reason we can’t is that you know the situation far better. So the person you’re worried about has a better chance of keeping safe from suicide if you call rather than us.
No. Any conversation we have with someone is confidential. So is the conversation we have with you. This works out better for everyone who calls because then they can feel more willing to be open and honest. We know from experience that the more honest someone is when calling our service; the greater chance they have of keeping safe from suicide.
When you call our helpline, we will explain to you that we will take brief notes from the call. This is just in case you want to contact us again in the future and we may also use this to make sure advisers are doing a good job.
The notes are just a brief overview of the conversation, but nothing identifiable. You can choose to leave your name, or a made-up name if you wish, just so we can find your notes if you choose to call us back.
During your contact the adviser may ask you for your age category and location from where you are contacting us from in the UK. You do not have to give us this information but it just helps us to understand a bit more about who we are supporting. This information remains secure and is not shared anywhere outside of the charity unless we identify an immediate risk. (see confidentiality policy)
HOPELINE247 is always looking for feedback from those we provide support to, even if this is about how we can make our service better. HOPELINE247 advisers want to know what they are doing right and what can be improved on. We welcome your opinion. You can email us at HOPELINE247@papyrus-uk.org.
