Helplines Awareness Day - a day of recognition

Last month, we were proud to launch our first - and the first UK-wide - Helplines Awareness Day.

As an organisation, the idea for an awareness day came from the lack of recognition helplines receive, and the lack of awareness surrounding them and all the services they provide and support they offer.

Social media campaign

The awareness day centred around a social media campaign, with the video below being shared across platforms. The response to the campaign was truly terrific, with other 800 posts shared across LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #HelplinesAwarenessDay.

On such a busy day of social engagement, we were thrilled to see this hashtag trending on Twitter at number 11 in the UK!

But success, to us, came in the form of members of the public posting that they had no idea so many helplines existed out there; which is the exact reason our organisation does what we do, to raise this awareness.

Awareness within larger organisations

We were pleased to see the awareness day prompting not only online engagement, but creating opportunities for helpline staff within larger charities to talk about their areas to staff in other areas of their organisations in the form of internal communications campaigns and events.

Next year?

Helplines Awareness Day will now take place on 23 February each year to mark the importance of helplines and all that they do, and illuminate their services to those out there who may not be aware of this huge amount of help and support available to them at the end of a phone, email, webchat or text.

We want to say a huge thank you to all those organisations who got involved in making this year's campaign such a success, and we invite you to join us each year going forward to keep this conversation alive.

At Helplines Partnership, have been committed to supporting organisations that provide non-face-to-face advice, support and information to improve general wellbeing for over 20 years. We champion the interests of our members and help them to build sustainability and deliver the best service they can for their users.