About Lifeline Western Sydney NSW
Lifeline Western Sydney is an activity of the Parramatta Mission and began as a 24 hour service on August 3rd, 1974, with Dr. Gloster Udy training volunteers in “Ellengowen”, a Georgian house which was the premises of the original Tara school in Parramatta.
Lifeline Western Sydney is funded largely by the Parramatta Mission, operating a 24hour 7 day a week crisis counselling service which covers the local government areas of: Holroyd, Parramatta, Blacktown and Baulkham Hills.This services a population of between 650,000 to 750,000 people.
Other services provided by the centre include:
- Financial counselling
- Gambling counselling
- General face to face counselling
- Contact calls to isolated and disabled members of the community
- Tailored training programs for organisations
- “Living Works” Suicide prevention training
Lifeline Western Sydney has approximately 120 trained volunteer telephone counsellors, answering over 30,000 crisis calls per annum, from people of all ages presenting with a variety of issues including: relationship difficulties, mental illness, suicidality, domestic violence, addictive behaviour, sexual abuse and loneliness, social isolation and disabilities.
Lifeline telephone counsellors provide a service for people at the very moment of crisis, offering counselling and support as well as additional resource information.
To train as a volunteer telephone counseller, please see the information under recruitment, or call 02 9891 6212 during business hours.