Immediate response to Family Helpline

27/4/94

The first call to the Department for Community Development's new Family Helpline was from a man seeking help to ensure that his current behaviour did not deteriorate into family abuse.

The call was made shortly after news about the Government's new Abuse in Families campaign was broadcast yesterday.

Community Development Minister Roger Nicholls said that there could hardly have been a more encouraging call with which to open the Family Helpline.

"The primary aim of this campaign is to prevent abuse," Mr Nicholls said.

"When people recognise that their current levels of anger, intolerance, confusion, or verbal abuse of spouse or children is in danger of degenerating into physical abuse, they have taken the first step towards dealing with their problem.

"The Helpline is as much for perpetrators or potential perpetrators who want to change as it is for those who are being abused.

"Seeking outside help is often the most effective step in that direction."

Mr Nicholls said that there had been 39 calls to the Family Helpline last night.

Twenty per cent of callers were partners seeking help with their own behaviour.

There were slightly more calls about adult relationships than about adult-child relationships.

Most calls lasted 20 to 30 minutes and were from people who were personally involved and wanted to be involved in counselling or other solutions.

Mr Nicholls said that the result was very positive and indicated that there was considerable willingness among people involved in the problem to deal with the problem.

The Minister emphasised that calls to the Helpline were confidential and he was given only broad figures and categories of calls without any possibility of identification.

Numbers for the 24-hour Family Helpline are 221 2000 or 008 643 000 for country callers.

Media contact:  Hugh Ryan 221 5468