1. The Danish research- and
development project on chat
counselling

2. Trine Natasja Sindahl
MSc in Psychology, Copenhagen
University.
Work at the Danish child helpline:
BørneTelefonen, since 2007.
Supervision and method development.
Worked with anonymous counselling
services since 1995.
Part-time lecturer at Copenhagen
University – Department of
Psychology. Teach how to develop and
evaluate social interventions.

3. Todays presentation
• Main findings from the
Danish research- and
development programme
on chat counselling
• Small break
• Questions and discussion
• A peek at out text service
(BørneTelefonen på SMS)

4. Main points
1. Counselling for children and youth should be
offered in a variety of medias
2. General counselling skills are just as or even
more important than media specific skills
3. We should not ask if our service is popular, but if
it is useful

5. Brief about Børns Vilkår
Founded 1977
300 volunteers educated in
working with children
25.000 counselling sessions in
2011
45 employees
Working for all children in
Denmark; however, a strong
focus on children at risk
BørneTelefonen established in
1987

6. ;-)=) =:-)
2001

7. BørneChatten 2001-2011
9000 8335
8000
7000
6000
5000
4188
4000
2764
3000
1846
2000
1049 913 1109 877 1053
782
1000 457
0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

8. Research- and development programme
on chat counselling, 2007-2011
Research publications: Developing:
• Literature review of international • A new software for conducting chat
chat counselling research counselling
• Article presenting an analysis of 15 • Increasing children’s access to chat
chat counselling sessions counselling
• Comparison study: chat and • The chat counselling methodology
telephone counselling • A website for children that supports
• Results and recommendation based the counselling
on the method-development project • A training programme in chat
• Children’s view of the Danish chat counselling
counselling service
• Children’s view on online help
– Handbook in chat
counselling

9. What I want to share with you …
• Advantages and disadvantages • Developing alliance
• The users • What works?

11. Why chat?
• Choice
• Feeling of control
• Anonymity
• Writing
• Free
• Silent
• Independent of place
• Can be combined with
other online tools
• - and it works!

12. Possibilities for the organisation
• Peer-to-peer leaning
• Live supervision
• Transcripts
• Dialogue with
colleagues
• Looking things up

13. Why not?
• Simultaneous
• Time consuming
• Misunderstandings and
conflicts
• Disinhibition effect
• Loose contact
• Virtual identities
• Difficult to make risk
assessment
• Digital divided
• Technical problems!

14. Children and youth in chat counselling
• Compared with telephone
counselling we see – across
countries – the same
tendencies:
– Even more girls
– A little bit older (Child helplines)
– Larger amount of serious and
complex problems, neglected
and violated children.

15. The typical user of a chat counselling service …
• … is a girl
• … in puberty
• … with serious and complex problems
• … who doesn’t want to be exposed
• … and who prefer time and quietness to articulate how she feels

16. Working alliance
• Presence – ”closeness via
distance”
• Control
• Online Disinhibition effect
– ”nobody’s shy in
cyberspace”

17. Can it do harm?
• Must not compromise the users wellbeing,
rights or confidentiality
• Must not contribute to lesser wellbeing or
stand in the way of more effective help
• Will it replace necessary help?
• Will it contribute to development of
dependency?

18. Effects of chat counselling
• De Kindertelefoon, The Netherlands
– Fukkink, R. & Hermanns, J. (2007): Children’s Experiences with the Kindertelefoon; Telephone
Support Compared to Chat Support. SCO-Kohnstamm Instituut.
• Kids HelpLine, Australia
– King, R., Bambling, M., Reid, W. & Thomas, I. (2006b): “Telephone and online counselling for
young people: A naturalistic comparison of session outcome, session impact and therapeutic
alliance”. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research vol. 6(3) Sep 2006, pp. 175-181.
• SAHAR, Israel
– Barak, A. & Bloch, N. (2006): “Factors related to perceived helpfulness in supporting highly
distressed individuals through an online support chat”. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(1), 60-
68.
• BRIS, Sweden
– Andersson, K. & Osvaldsson, K. (2011): Utvärdering av BRIS Internetbaserede stödkontakter.
Executive summary. Linköpings universitet.
• Børns Vilkår, Denmark

20. 1. I feel better/worse
2. I was (not) taken
seriously
3. We (did not) talk about,
what I wanted to talk
about
4. I (don’t) have a better
overview of my
problem
5. I (don’t) know what to
do now

23. When the child gets a
Phase better overview of its
3 problems
When the child gets
an idea of what to do
What
works?
When the child has
talked about what it
When the child is
wanted to talk about
Phase 4 taken seriously

24. Conclusions
• Be present on several medias
• Chat counselling offers a useful way of getting
in contact with children at risk
• Chat counselling works

25. Why a texting service too?
”I think there are many that are too shy to talk to an adult, they don’t know –
texting is easier”
”Then your mother can’t see it if you share a computer”
“Uou can write even if you are not at home – if you are sitting outside… or just lying
in bed … you don’t have to start up the computer.”
”you can take it with you on your mobile”
”A lot of times I wanted to contact you during school hours or something like that –
I will be able to do that on text”
”…it’s very smart – you can write when you are in class without disturbing the
class”

26. Developing the service
• Our counselling methodology
should dictate the system – not
vice versa
• However we wanted to utilize
the advantages off this specific
media
• We worked hard to get the
number 116 111 – and
succeeded!
• We stand on the shoulders of
giants 

27. I think it sounds very
interesting, but my
thombs hurts so much
when I text

28. 624 counselling sessions

29. Any
questions?