“I’m depressed but scared to ask for help”: A direct line to Britain’s youth mental health crisis
Ground zero of Britain’s shadow operation to tackling the crisis of mental among young people is located on the base level of a redbrick building in the heart of east London.
Straight on from reception inside the NSPCC’s Shoreditch office is a keycard entry system – which many of the charity’s staff don’t have the ability to bypass – and a glass partition separating the outside world to Childline’s command centre.
Behind the glass, headsets on, arranged around circular shared desks, are just a small number of the 1,200 Childline volunteers who, between them, field calls from children in various states of emotional and mental distress 24 hours-a-day, seven days-a-week. They delivered 162,018 counselling sessions in 2024-2025. The largest proportion of those, 53,858 in total, related to poor emotional and mental health.
Off to the side of the main operation is a small “debrief room”. It is furnished with comfy seating, “Reasons to smile” note jars and vibrant displays with achievement certificates not too dissimilar to those found in school classrooms. Perched on the edge of a grey corner sofa, Childline service lead Barry Larker commands a sturdy, yet casual presence – donning a relaxed navy shirt, beige trousers and matching trainers. “At Childline we see a constant flow of young people coming through to us for… support, often in crisis,” Larker tells me. Primarily, it’s “a crisis of mental health”. The key drivers of the crisis? The cost of living, social media, lockdowns necessitated by the pandemic, general “worries of the world” – the list goes on. “But it can be difficult to point to any one thing in particular,” Larker adds.
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“For our volunteers, it’s important after a session to unpack it all,” the Childline lead says of the emotionally “gruelling” counselling shifts, which last four hours in total. The hardest part is not knowing what happens at the other side of the line when a call ends. Sometimes a young person may hang up after getting through due to nerves, which causes less angst. The toughest, Larker outlines matter-of-factly, are “high-risk” conversations that end abruptly. “Ones where a child tells you they’re by the side of a railway or on top of a bridge – and the phone cuts off.” He takes a moment. Such instances are among the few triggers for the volunteer counsellors to break strict confidentiality rules. “But even then,” Larker says, citing unresponsive and stretched police forces, “it can be weeks before you hear a follow up on a case you raise. And it’s not always good news”.
Such situations – where young people put themselves in life-threatening positions – are slowly “increasing”, according to Larker who, after spending two decades in education, has been at Childline for four years.
However you look at or define it, the tide of mental ill- health among young people is rising. Research commissioned by NHS England in 2023 found that more than one in five children are living with a probable mental disorder. That was up from 12.5 per cent in the same cohort in 2017. In turn, our young people and the systems that are meant to support them, are struggling to cope.
The number of young people accessing NHS-funded mental health services leapt by nearly 80,000 on the previous year in 2025 – an 11 per cent increase. In England, across 2024-2025, 1.2 million children were in contact with secondary mental health services. In its funding and service quality, the NHS Children and Adolescents Mental Health Services (CAMHS) is widely considered an uneven entity. A 2023 TheHouse investigation into CAMHS revealed that, across the UK, spending per child is four-times higher in some parts of the country than others, and the average wait for a first appointment varies between ten days and three years. The effects of this can be devastating – numerous studies and surveys of those in the treatment backlog shared that they have thought or attempted to take their own lives whilst waiting for formal support to begin. (Childline delivered 18,981 counselling sessions where the child’s main concern was recorded as suicide between April 2024 and March 2025.)
In various areas of life across the country, third sector actors increasingly provide services and sanctuaries that were once delivered by the state. Most have struggled to keep up with growing demand and stretched resources. As a charity, Childline is not immune. With growing need and relying on the goodwill of a relatively shallow resource pool, it has had to adapt. Despite the data suggesting that more children are suffering from increasingly complex issues, it is actually taking fewer calls. In the last full year before the pandemic, it provided over 250,000 counselling ons; that figure has since dropped by around 90,000. (This, Childline notes, can partly be attributed to shifting some resources to web chats and email; “while demand from young people certainly hasn’t decreased, their needs have changed”, it said.)
The support, whether text-based or over the phone, can also take an incredible emotional toll on those tasked with delivering it. “Of course we are,” Larker answers when I ask if Childline is finding it increasingly challenging to keep up with demand. His previously open body language becomes noticeably more guarded, his words more measured. “It’s difficult to handle all that you hear.” Yearly volunteer attrition was once at 30 per cent; Larker has strived to slash that to 20 per cent. “You’re working as a volunteer, and you hear the most harrowing things. People find a way to deal with it in different ways.” Some “let it all out”, teary, in the debrief room (the space is noticeably not lacking for tissues). Others get on the train home, “and decide that by a certain stop to not think about it anymore”. A few “take it home with them”.
Compartmentalisation – however one achieves it – is key for longevity. Larker seems that personified. When asked, he is quick to remember the call that has stayed with him most, but then takes a moment. “I’d rather not go back over it.”
On average, a child contacts Childline every 45 seconds. With the approval of those who have reached out, the charity shared transcripts of their conversations with Spotlight.
The children bear it all: problems big and small, old and new. “I feel so depressed and alone. It’s been going on for months but [has] been getting worse recently. I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t remember the last time I felt good or happy,” a boy, aged 16 and living in Scotland, tells the service. “No one takes me seriously when I try to say I’m depressed. I want help but I’m scared to ask again.” A girl, aged 17 living in Wales, says: “I don’t feel like I belong anywhere or see my life going anywhere. How can I imagine a future for myself when I feel like this? I can’t see a way out of how I feel.” In England, a girl, aged 17, contacted the service to open up: “Recently my ‘friend’ cancelled on me, then later I saw she was out with other friends when she posted about it online. I feel so let down and so alone, I really feel like I have no friends.” It is not just children who call (some of whom can be as young as 8-years-old): adults concerned about a child’s welfare can contact and ask for advice. In 2024-2025, Childline responded to nearly 70,000 communications from people who were concerned about a child’s welfare.
Childline has 12 bases across the UK. They open on a rotational basis, with a few live at any given time. Volunteers are given 12 weeks of training. The busiest shifts – three-and-a-half hours, bookended by short briefings – take place in the evenings and overnight, as children are in school during the day, and less likely to call. “When things get busy, it gets busy,” Larker notes. This time of year, early spring and exam season, sees traffic increase “exponentially”.
“It can be a lot,” Larker adds, “and sometimes we can’t get to everyone.” Some may have to wait a while before speaking to a volunteer – around ten per location are likely on shift at any given time. To try and manage the load efficiently without undermining service quality, time spent talking is capped: 20 minutes for phone calls and double that for text chats. The thinking is that this is enough time to understand a child’s situation, and give a sufficient ear or necessary advice. Volunteers are told as part of their training to extend if they see fit. “Canny” regular callers have figured out the system. “Some, when they realise they may be up to the limit,” Larker explains with a rye smile, “may purposefully drop in a tidbit of information to keep the person on the phone hooked and talking.”
Inadvertently, charities like Childline and similar third sector organisations have moved to the frontlines of tackling our crisis of mental health. What was once a supporting role has become a leading one. Austerity and its effects on the education sector’s ability to help young people, is frequently mentioned by Larker, himself a former teacher. The cuts were “devastating”. As such, places like Childline takes greater prescience, and load.
Despite the crisis at hand, behind the glass partition all is calm. Whispering is the standard method of communication. A handful of headset-wearing volunteers make notes at their desktops. “Hi there,” one female volunteer greets a caller, in a warm, soft tone. After a minute, the volunteer raises their hand, and a manager comes over to consult. Another minute passes, and the call suddenly cuts. A knowing raised eyebrow from Larker: “That happens. Could be a million reasons why. They may call back later tonight.”
He points towards a wall display of green hearts, laid out vertically in six rows of three: each represents 100 significant contacts with a child. It is branch-specific and updated every month; “1,800 calls in April alone,” Larker whispers. “It’s difficult to think what those young people – many who are facing significant mental distress – would have done if they did not have this outlet.”
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