Tag: mental health

So here’s my last post on volunteering with the confidential mental health helplines run ‘by students for students’ at universities, then the overarching association body.

A classic way to encourage a person to open up about their difficulties is to ask “How does that make you feel?”.  How then do Nightliners feel about the demise of their association?

Call to say what’s on your mind

The timeline above doesn’t convey the deep emotions that I and many others have about our time during and since being part of a local Nightline and the umbrella organisation.

This was evident in the farewell events the Nightline Association held in the weeks before it closed down due to dwindling funding and volunteers and several other factors. People from “a long list of generations of the same family” came together for what were “lovely occasions, despite the sadness felt about the Association being no more.” Here I re-say my piece, augmented by poetic phrases such as these from others.

One by one alumni spoke movingly of “a unique skill set that became the foundation of a career.” Whether focusing on learning to help people in a crisis, administration or leadership, many echoed the sentiment of Nightline giving them “a steadfast sense of purpose to direct my life in supporting others so they can do what they are good at.” “Nightline gave me a first glimpse into that.”

“That unwavering passion lives on in the experience of the thousands of volunteers who have contributed to this movement in the last 55 years. That’s mind boggling.”

“It’s fascinating to think of the networks and organisations we infiltrate with our unique viewpoints on the world and core of active listening and supporting others that drives us no matter what we do with our lives.”

I had done a lot of the leg work to track down and invite former volunteers to the farewell celebrations. I’d gotten a real buzz from it, which despite a lot of other volunteering  I’ve not felt since I was immersed in the Nightline world in the 2000’s. I felt all warm and fuzzy with nostalgia for the culture, comradeship and perhaps dolefully sense of youth too!

I was delighted that so many people answered the call (should have expected nothing less of great Nightliners!). Their reminiscing felt like a wave of love for the movement we’d all been a part of and had consumed such a huge part of our lives for so long. It clearly left an indelible mark on us all and has positively affected so many others through us.

Reflecting

The confidential and non-judgemental principles of Nightline meant people ‘came out’ for the first time to their fellow volunteers long before to anyone else. It was also a group that people with diverse characteristics gravitated towards. So many of us found our tribe(s) and felt part of a profound cause. The stories alumni told at the farewell events were very emotional. Again, as expert Nightliners we listened intently.

The farce of me trying to join Nightline at University of Surrey is a whole other saga that I once serialised. When I did get in, my unanswered plea for help to National Nightline started my mission and story.

I set out to build up the umbrella organisation, so that that no local officials would ever again be so powerless and unsupported – wanting to do good through the Nightline concept, but unable to.

For decades at conferences, delegates had been debating Nightline operations.

“Conferences were the highlight of my year:  pure inspiration of hearing devotees  talking about what they do. You went thinking ‘our way is best’ and then ‘wow, I need to take this idea back’. It showed the power of community despite doing things differently to learn from each other, socialise and celebrate.”

However the gaps between events and the rapid turnover of students made such revelations frustratingly spasmodic and repetitive.

I launched the first website and later a mailing list and online forum. We were thrilled with how these massively accelerated communication and progress .

Suddenly officials were collaborating between Nightlines in real-time, breaking down dogma and learning from each other constantly. Sharing resources saved us time and gave quality beyond our own skills to create. We felt empowered and excited at the possibilities of building something bigger than any individual or committee could do in isolation.

Change is also unsettling though. We began challenging long established doctrines. Very controversially, online discussions enabled Nightliners who had graduated to input their newly garnered professional experience. Did this undermine the ‘by students’ mantra?  Yet “the disagreements were all grounded in the passion everyone felt for doing the right thing.”

This culminated in becoming charity. I served on the fabulous first team of trustees   “steering the Nightline ship at a very transformational time”. We developed the Good Practice Guidelines (Quality Standard), recruited an employee and designed the common ‘n’ logo and tagline (with alumni at Accenture and Wolff Olins).

I was ecstatic seeing how the internet and collective action was fulfilling my personal mission and everyone’s ambition of relieving mental distress among students.

The turn of the millennium  was also a golden age for Nightlines because students had mobiles phones but were not online. For the first time they could call our helplines privately, while still valuing the (increasingly web powered) information service of Nightline. This made our services useful, and volunteers feel gratified.

The digital age also brought intriguing opportunities and challenges, in the form online tooling (rota, logbooks, training) and listening channels (email, instant messaging, video calls).

What was the effect on you?

I called another Nightline once. I needed to talk about the difficulties I was having working with committee colleagues at Surrey Nightline. That was a weird conversation for me and the call taker. But getting it off my chest it really helped! Talking it through made me appreciate others’ perspectives and gave me ways forward I couldn’t fathom before.

I was recently asked by a researcher, ‘What is the best thing you have done as a volunteer in terms of impact?’. I was proud to reply that I’d been told someone had not killed themselves because of a call with me at Surrey Nightline. Of course, that’s what Nightline exists for.

In terms of the association though, looking beyond the caller beneficiaries, what sticks out to me is all amazing things the people have done with the brilliant experience of leadership and management that National/Nightline/Association infused into them. It gave experience of running a national organisation in your early 20s! It engendered confidence and a route to exploring talents in early life.

In interviews we could say ‘Yes I have experience of doing that at Nightline…”. It’s incredible! I’ve used those powerful examples so often. Even now when writing job applications, I have to resist using skill demonstrations from Nightline and force myself to think of more recent relevant examples!

It wasn’t all pleasure. It was a lot of toil. We often missed out on worthwhile activities for the cause. There were failures and dead or loose ends as well as the successes. Lessons about dealing with people, tasks and change could be tough to learn from.  
But they were immensely valuable formative experiences for me. They got me where I am today, and I draw on them daily as a senior leader and manager.  

I constantly use the original Nightline training too. For example, in 1-to-1s with my reportees I’m still using those phrases and pauses to help them make progress. I also get to relax in almost every corporate training course when they get to the section on active listening!

Thank you for helping

For making all this true, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who went before me and came after. It’s amazing to hear everyone’s stories of playing a part in and being influenced by this wonderful organisation. Well done.  We can be extremely proud of the accomplishments. I am extremely so.

Summarising and looking forward

These and other’s “jumble of reflections that echo across the decades” show how Nightline is “a family and community that’s about giving, helping,  listening, learning and developing together”.  

“It’s such a fundamentally good idea. Good ideas never die, so I’m confident it will live on in some form. I’m sure students will keep coming back to the idea of a support service run by students for students. No one can quite empathise as much as another student from the same university.”

The Nightline Association is closing but some Nightlines are continuing stronger than ever.

“Whatever happens to them the idea will live on. There will still be people like me whose lives have been shaped by and will never forget what we learned at Nightline. We are better people because of that training and spending all night listening.”

“If without Nightline you now have spare time, take the spirit forward.
Find a new passion:
Be kind. Do good. Repeat”