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Your rights · chapter 9 of 9

Help lines everywhere

This page is not a phone book, and that is on purpose. Numbers change, services close, and a number that no longer answers is worse than no number at all. So this page carries just three contacts it can stand behind: two numbers, and one directory that lists other services and works to keep them up to date. The rest of the page is an honest account of what reaching out is actually like.

If you need help now

If you are in danger now call local emergency services. This site is not a crisis service. Information, not medical or legal advice.

You do not need a reason, and you do not have to be sure

Claim
Reaching a health service is not something you have to earn by being bad enough, and if you are under 18 in a country bound by the CRC, the treaty calls access to health care your right.
Instrument
CRC, article 24(1).
Quote
"the highest attainable standard of health", and states shall strive to ensure no child is deprived of "his or her right of access to such health care services" (CRC).
What it means for you
The treaty is written as access, not as a prize for being ill enough. You do not need a name for what is wrong, you do not need to have decided anything, and you do not need to be at your worst. "I am not sure this counts" is a reason people give themselves for waiting; it is not a rule any service sets. Find A Helpline's own page puts it plainly: "You don’t have to be suicidal or in a severe situation" (findahelpline.com).
Where it often fails
Waiting until it is undeniable is common, because school and home often ask you to prove distress before they take it seriously. Someone who has been told once to toughen up rarely asks twice. In many places the service is real but far away, open only certain hours, or only in a language that is not yours.
What you can ask for
You can make contact without knowing what to say. "I don't know how to start" is a fine first sentence. You can ask what the service covers and whether anyone there speaks your language. If the first one is not right for you, you are allowed to try another.

Finding a line where you live

Claim
If you are under 18 and your country is bound by the CRC, it promised that you can reach information meant to serve your mental health.
Instrument
CRC, article 17.
Quote
"access to information and material from a diversity of national and international sources", especially material aimed at "his or her social, spiritual and moral well-being and physical and mental health" (CRC).
What it means for you
Being told help exists is not the same as being able to reach it. This site prints no number for your country, deliberately: a list of numbers on a small site goes stale quietly, and nobody learns it is wrong until someone calls. Use findahelpline.com instead. You say where you are and it shows the services for that place. Its own page says it lists verified helplines in over 175 countries and that they work daily to keep the information accurate. Some are phone, some are text, some are online chat, and it carries a quick-exit button that sends the browser to a weather site if someone walks in. Useful to know before you rely on it: that hides the page, it does not erase it, and the back button still returns.
Where it often fails
Coverage is uneven. A country may have one line, open part of the day, in one language. A reader may have no private device, or data may cost money they do not have. Directories go out of date too; they just do it more slowly, and in public, than a small site's list does.
What you can ask for
Look up what exists where you are before you need it, and keep it somewhere only you can see. Ask at school which service the school itself uses and whether anyone there has used it. Ask whether the number is free from your phone, and whether a chat service will use your data.

What happens when you reach out

Not knowing what will happen is part of what makes contact hard, so here is the shape of it. This section is practice, not law.

The shape of it. Someone answers, or replies in writing. It is usually a trained volunteer, a counsellor or a peer rather than a doctor. They ask what is going on, and you do not have to have an answer ready; silence and false starts are normal. You can stop at any point, hang up, close the chat or simply stop replying, and you owe nobody an explanation for it. Many services do not ask for your name, and you are allowed to ask at the start whether you have to give one. Nothing is decided for you in the first minute. If you cannot speak out loud, because you share a room, the walls are thin, or speaking is hard for you, text and online chat exist for exactly that. Find A Helpline shows which services take text or chat.

What can go wrong. You may wait. Lines are busy and some open only certain hours. A first conversation can feel flat, or the person may simply not be a fit for you, and that is not a verdict on you or on the next one. Some services are built for adults and sound like it.

What you can ask. Before you say anything you can ask: is this free, is it recorded, do I have to give a name, who else sees this, what happens if I stop replying. Those are ordinary questions. If a service will not answer them, that tells you something too.

What stays private, and what may not

Claim
Under 18, in a country bound by the CRC, a treaty protects your privacy; the protection is not absolute, and you are allowed to know which is which before you speak.
Instrument
CRC, article 16(1); CRC General Comment 15, paragraph 31; CRC General Comment 20, paragraphs 39 and 46.
Quote
"arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy" (CRC, art. 16(1)).
What it means for you
The UN committee that reads the CRC says children should have access to "confidential counselling and advice without parental or legal guardian consent" (CRC General Comment 15, para 31). The same paragraph attaches two conditions the committee does not treat as optional: access goes with "their evolving capacities", and the professionals working with the child judge whether that access is in the child's best interests. So this is not a switch that flips at a certain age. In a later General Comment the same committee says adolescents have "the right to have access to confidential medical counselling and advice" (CRC General Comment 20, para 39), and that "The right to privacy takes on increasing significance during adolescence" (GC 20, para 46). What that does not mean is that every service everywhere keeps everything private. Services differ and national laws differ. Many keep what you say private. Some have a duty to act if they believe a person is in immediate danger. This page states no particular service's policy, because it has not read them.
Where it often fails
A school counsellor may answer to a head teacher. A service attached to a hospital may keep a record. Under 18, some services will want a parent brought in. None of this is hidden from you if you ask, but almost nobody thinks to ask.
What you can ask for
Ask first: "before I tell you anything, what do you keep private, and what would make you tell someone else?" Then ask who that someone else would be. If the answer does not work for you, you can stop there and try a different service, and saying so out loud is allowed.

If it is a friend, not you

You can be useful to someone without being their counsellor.

What helps. Ask directly. "Are you okay" collects "fine", so name what you actually noticed and ask a plain question about it. Then listen more than you talk; you are not there to fix it and you are not equipped to. Stay, and come back later, because the second conversation is usually the real one. Do not promise to keep a secret before you know what it is. If you are asked to, you can say instead that you will not tell anyone who does not need to know. If a friend is in danger now, that is what local emergency services are for.

What can go wrong. The promise is asked for first, and it is hard to refuse someone you love. People also go quiet after one conversation, and the one who asked can end up carrying it alone without telling anybody. You are allowed to be out of your depth, and you are allowed to say so to the person themselves.

What you can ask. You can contact a service about someone else; Find A Helpline lists services for people supporting someone else. You can ask a teacher, a school nurse or a counsellor to check on someone, and you can ask whether the concern can be raised without your name travelling with it. You can ask a service what to say before you say it.

What this chapter does not say

  • There are no contacts here beyond the three at the top. Those three, two numbers and one directory, are the only contacts this site has verified, and a stale number is a real harm, not a small untidiness. Everything else routes through findahelpline.com, which exists so that a site like this one never has to keep a list it cannot keep correct.
  • One directory, not two. The International Association for Suicide Prevention keeps a page of international organisations (IASP), and that page says IASP provides no direct support itself and sends people to the same directory this page sends you to. That is the argument for one maintained directory rather than a longer list.
  • Nothing here claims that a help line works. This page does not say that contacting a service, or that this site existing, changes what happens to anyone. What it can honestly describe is what a service is, what happens when you reach one, and what you are allowed to ask. Whether it was worth it is yours to judge, and you are allowed to try a different one.
  • Information, not medical or legal advice. This page cannot tell you what to do about your own health, and it does not know your country's rules. Chapter 6, What your country promised, explains the card the Atlas keeps for each country. That card shows where your country stands on four treaties, not its own laws.

How this chapter was checked

Every claim above was checked against the text it cites. Every quotation is the source's own words, under 15 words, and links to the text it came from.

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The texts this chapter was read against

This is information, not legal advice. If a line here is wrong, Correct this. Back to all 9 chapters, or see Methodology for how the checking works.