Member-only story
Kids Help Phone & Mental Health Burnout
How Canada’s Charity Help Line Workers are barely hanging on, and how we can use Service Design to improve their experience
Content Warning: The following article discusses deteriorating Mental Health issues in adults as well as children.
Admittedly, this is tough for me to write. Between losing a childhood friend to a mental health condition, to working in a chronic pain clinic where we were often the adult version of Kid’s Help Phone. Thank you to my Professor Yvonne Shek who inspired and encouraged me to share this story.
1–800–668–6868
I remember they made us memorize that in grade two or three? I had a sticker with the phone number on it attached to my landline phone in my bedroom. I’ve never called the line myself, but I’ve given it to a certain friend who was having some trouble at home. Reading Diane Buckner’s article from CBC surrounding the workplace conditions of the Kids Help Phone workers gave a strange combination of sympathy and disappointment, especially having been in a similar situation of emotional burnout at one point in my healthcare job.
To see an organization that is supposed to be focused on helping children lock…
