© www.z-misss.si
“They’re emerging from childhood and want to take on responsibilities, but people
often tell them they’re too young.” |
By
starting a hotline, some 50 Slovenian teenagers have become pros at listening, conversing
and gently settling everyday hassles
The phone rings, startling
two high school students, Tina and Jana. “I’ll get it!” says Jana. “This is ’Teens
Talking to Teens’...” We’re in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, at the Youth Counselling
Centre, which began a hotline for troubled teens in 1993. What’s so original about
this self-financing project? The people answering the phones aren’t experts but 14
to 18 year-olds. Pairs of them are on duty every day from three to five in the afternoon,
except weekends and vacations. At first, they were teenagers from the neighbourhood.
Then their schoolmates and friends of friends started pitching in. Today, they number
about 50.
“Everybody knows our phone number,” says Nina. “It’s posted in the schools. Most
callers are high school students. Some of them think we’ll do their math homework.”
But that’s not what the hotline is there for. “Mothers call us too,” says Daniel,
“when they have reasons to think their children are taking drugs. We’ve got a good
file of special institutions we can refer them to. And when the situation looks serious,
we transfer the call to the professional staff.” The volunteers have been duly advised
that drugs are a matter for experts.
Ales says the best thing about the hotline is that it gives teenagers a chance to
speak freely about school, parents and sex. “It’s different from going to shrinks,
which can be awkward and boring sometimes.”
Adults, including centre director Ljubo Raicevic, psychologist Natasa Fabjan and
educator Lili Raicevic, keep a low profile. Their role is limited to training and
supervising the volunteers. Answering the questions is not always easy. “Sometimes
you feel powerless,” says Andreja. “If somebody calls several times, you eventually
figure out what’s really bothering them. But most people call just once, and you
wonder whether you said the right thing.” Nejc adds, “The best ideas always occur
to you after hanging up! So, we tell ourselves that the main thing is to talk, if
only to take the caller’s mind off his or her dark thoughts.”
Why do these young people spend hours on the phone with strangers? Maja, who is still
a minor, has already been listening and counselling for three years. “The high school
sent me here,” she says. “They told me I was too talkative, and thought that talking
on the phone would do me good. I’ve met lots of nice people here. We train together
and go out together. We’ve all become friends.”
The young volunteers are devoted to helping others, but they also get something out
of the experience. For some, the hotline is a means to keep loneliness at bay. Others
satisfy their need for freedom and self-assertion. “They’re emerging from childhood
and want to take on responsibilities, but people often tell them they’re too young.
Here, they’re taken seriously. Volunteering gives them a chance to make the transition
between playing and working,” says the centre’s director, an educator and psychotherapist
by training .
The volunteers say that since they’ve started “talking to teens,” they have become
aware of other people’s woes and can settle their own more easily. For example, Stela,
who joined the group when she was 13, eventually shared her problems —a serious conflict
with her parents—with her new friends.
The professional staff members have also had to work on themselves and mature at
the same time as the teens. “The idea came from them,” says Raicevic. “At first,
we were reluctant because they were stepping into an area traditionally reserved
for professionals and adults. But we told ourselves that without young people, their
influence and ideas, we could never succeed. Why not let them take part in making
decisions and get involved?” The 8,000 or so phone calls received since the hotline
opened in 1993 proves they can.
Slovenian
Youth Counselling Centre:
www.z-misss.si |
