In times of need - Salvo Care Line
A fence at the top
By David Woodbury
While some social welfare programs seek to rescue those who have fallen into the abyss of hopelessness and despair, Salvation Army programs seek to be the fence at the top that will prevent people reaching those depths.
Intervention in times of crisis has always been part of The Salvation Army’s ethos. The Salvation Army’s founder, William Booth was firmly convinced that one of the best ways of preventing people sliding into despair and hopelessness was to establish programs to help people before they reached that stage. In his book In Darkest England and the way out, Booth dealt with the hopelessness of women caught up in prostitution. He wrote: The state of hopelessness and despair in which these girls live continually, makes them reckless of consequences, and large numbers commit suicide who are never heard of. Booth went on to lament the inadequacy of governments to tackle the problem. If a woman, driven mad with shame, flings herself into the river, and is fished out alive, we clap her into Prison on a charge of attempted suicide. To change situations like this, Booth’s Darkest England scheme proposed programs that would act as a fence at the top of the cliff rather than the ambulance at the bottom.
A centenary challenge
Over recent years The Salvation Army’s crisis intervention ministry has been clearly demonstrated in Australia by the setting up of various 24-hour telephone counselling services and a national suicide prevention and bereavement support service.
1982 saw the centenary of Salvation Army ministry in Sydney and a small committee from the Sydney Congress Hall Corps, the first corps in New South Wales considered how the centenary could be celebrated in a meaningful way. Alan Staines, a group member suggested setting up a program that would be ongoing. Alan had been working as a volunteer telephone counsellor with Lifeline and was concerned that when territorial headquarters in Sydney closed its doors at the end of each day there was no point of contact for people seeking help from The Salvation Army in the inner city. Alan’s work with Captain David Brunt at the SOS Centreon the streets of Sydney’s Kings Cross brought him face to face with the need for such a service that would meet the needs of people in crisis at any hour of the day or night.
A decision was made to start a 24-hour Salvation Army telephone counselling service and in early 1983 volunteers from Sydney Congress Hall and Dee Why corps started training to answer the phones. By 1 October 1983 the Salvo Care Line had set up the service in the Staines home at Carlingford.
Rapid development
Salvo Care Line started as a ministry of the Sydney Congress Hall Corps but after six months the demand on the crisis counselling service was so heavy that Alan Staines and his wife Lois closed down their building company and committed themselves full-time to the task. Major Errol Woodbury, Sydney Congress Hall corps officer commissioned them as envoys in 1984 to run the telephone counselling ministry from a small room in the Congress Hall corps complex. During that year workers were employed under the commonwealth employment program to assist in answering phones. The service found good support from the then chief secretary, Colonel Robert Bath who made it his responsibility to contact corps and officers throughout the territory to support the service. By late 1984 high demand on the service saw the Sydney East and Illawarra Division come on board to fund and support it.
The government lends a hand
To try and meet the needs of the rapidly expanding service Alan Staines wrote to the New South Wales premier, Neville Wran requesting assistance from the government for permanent premises for Salvo Care Line. Although there was only a lukewarm response the matter was later raised on the floor of parliament by the then opposition spokesperson on community affairs, Virginia Chadwick. Soon afterwards a letter arrived on Alan’s desk from the New South Wales government offering a building at 339 Crown St, Surry Hills. The three-story complex, formerly the Crown Street Women’s Hospital was leased at a peppercorn rent to The Salvation Army with the government offering some funding to make the necessary repairs on the building which had stood empty for a number of years. Calling on his building background Alan, with a group of volunteers soon had the complex ready and in July 1986 it became the new home for Salvo Care Line. Two early workers were a very youthful couple, Paul and Robbin Moulds later to set up the Oasis Youth Network in the Crown Street building. By 1989 Salvo Care Line was responding to some 70,000 crisis calls a year.
The challenge of youth in crisis
That same year Salvo Care Line set up a new service in response to a growing awareness among telephone counsellors that many young people felt powerless to resolve difficult situations in their lives. A report prepared in 1989 highlighted the alarming statistics among young people between 15 and 19 years of age:
Over 25,000 are homeless
1 in 4 girls have been sexually abused
1 in 7 boys attempt suicide
40,000 young people in Australia attempted to take their own life during 1989
Over 400 young males were successful in their attempt to commit suicide during 1989
As well ninety percent of teen suicide attemptors complain[ed] they [could not] talk to their parents.
In response to these alarming statistics government funding was secured and Salvo Youth Line, a national telephone service was opened in January 1989 by Prime Minister Bob Hawke. By ringing an 008 number from anywhere in Australia at any time of the day or night, young people could receive immediate help from a trained telephone counsellor. A Lonely Person Register Line and a Suicide Prevention Line soon followed.
Alan and Lois Staines, the first managers of Salvo Care Line were followed successively by Majors Vic and Eileen Bailey (from 18 September 1990), Captains Bob and Geanette Seymour (from 1 July 1992), Ms Bev Stockall (from 1 August 1994) and then Paul Scott.
A time of consolidation
Coming as manager of Salvo Care Line on 5 November 1997, Yvonne Dewar brought a high degree of dedication and training as a counsellor. During her formative years at university Yvonne had promised God that if she was successful in her studies she would seek employment where she could overtly utilise her Christian beliefs. An advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald for a manager for Salvo Care Line proved to be that ministry.
Initially Yvonne managed the service in the Crown Street complex. It was in a difficult area of Sydney and many volunteers left because of this. After consultation with Salvation Army leaders regarding a new purpose-built complex, she was given permission to relocate to an old Salvation Army property in Five Dock. As plans were being made to refurbish the building it was completely demolished by mistake, leaving the service with nothing but a vacant block of land and little in the way of funding to erect a new building.
A permanent home
An invitation as a guest speaker at a major Sydney Rotary club gave Yvonne an opportunity to present the ministry of Salvo Care Line. Following her presentation she was asked if there was anything the club could do to assist. Yvonne responded by telling of the vacant block of land and the need for a building. Within a short period of time a sum of $AU1.5 million dollars was promised by the Rotary club with a further $60,000 being donated for a training hall by the Proud Foundation. In March 2006 the Australia Eastern territorial commander, Commissioner Les Strong officially opened the complex debt free.
Salvo Care Line was well supported by Christian media outlets such as radio station 103.2. These outlets relied on Salvo Care Line for Christian counselling for their listeners and gave publicity when the service was seeking volunteers. By 2009 the service answered 73,000 calls, averaging around 20 minutes per call. Of these 5,000 were crisis calls.
In June 2015 Salvo Care Line closed, after an internal Salvation Army review.
This article first appeared in The Salvation Army's Hallelujah! magazine.
