Lancaster Nightline

We’ll Listen, Not Lecture

Open 10pm-8am every night of term.

Lancaster Nightline is a listening and information service run by students, for students at Lancaster University. We aim to provide a night-time contact point offering a wealth of free information or just a non-judgemental listening ear. All calls made to us are confidential, and remain completely anonymous. You can contact us by telephone, email, instant messaging or Skype.

So… where did it all begin?

National Nightline

Nightline is national movement, providing listening services and information during the night, when most other university services are closed. The first Nightline was formed in May 1970 at Essex University due to worries about the increasingly high suicide rate amongst students. Set up by a previous director of the Samaritans, the service trained students to provide their peers with someone to talk to confidentially. There are now 40 Nightline services in the UK and more in America, Canada, and Europe.

Lancaster Nightline

A year after Essex started the trend, in October 1971, Lancaster Nightline first opened its lines to callers. Over 40 years later the Essex service is still going, and the movement it started has spread across the UK. Originally referred to as the ‘Friendly Night Owls’, Lancaster Nightline has continued to exist, surviving both strengths and hardship, to where we are today. We currently take calls, email contact, instant messages and skype calls. Still run for students by students, Lancaster Nightline is open 10pm to 8am during term time to provide students with an access point for information, and a listening ear. No matter what the topic, Lancaster Nightline volunteers will listen and provide information requested.

Lancaster Nightline aims to follow 6 principles:

• CONFIDENTIALITY– All calls to Nightline are confidential: we will not divulge anything in your call to anyone outside the service

• ANONYMITY– We won’t make any attempt to find out who you are- we won’t ask for your name.  Nightline volunteers are anonymous themselves.

• NON-JUDGEMENTALISM– We have no political, religious, ethnic or moral views.  We respect the views of any caller and do not judge you for anything you’ve done.

• NON-DIRECTIVISM– We won’t try to force you towards any course of action, or get you to think about the situation in any particular way.

• EMPATHY–  Each call is about YOU as an individual- your thoughts and your feelings.  Our volunteers are trained in  empathetic listening to make sure we see things from your perspective.

• DEDICATION- All of our volunteers are passionate about helping our callers, and are always here to listen.

All of our volunteers follow these principles when taking calls.  All these principles protect both you as a caller, and us as volunteers. The Nightline Association’s catchphrase is, ‘we’ll listen, not lecture’.

You can now contact Nightline in four ways

• PHONE– You can call us on 01524 59 44 44

• SKYPE (FREE)– You can call us through the Skype mobile or desktop app, just search for the user named lancater.nightline and click the audio only phone icon to call us. There’s no need to add us as a contact to talk with us.

• INSTANT MESSAGING– You can talk with us on Instant messaging right here on our website. Just Click here.

• EMAIL– You can also send us an email to [email protected] we aim to respond to emails within 48 hours.

• ADMIN EMAIL– If you would like to contact our executive committee about our service, technical issues or anything else, please send us an email on [email protected]

All of our contact methods are available from 10pm to 8am every night of term. If we are ever unable to accept calls for a night, we’ll let you know on our facebook and twitter, linked at the footer of the website.

‘Student life is not always the party people might think it is. I can’t think of a service that does so much for so little, but even that little needs to come from…somewhere.’

– Stephen Fry.

Lancaster Nightline is run BY students FOR students, and therefore we rely on a team of dedicated student volunteers to keep the service running. All volunteers go through a comprehensive training program before becoming enrolled in the service. Training is a great experience and a fantastic chance to meet new people and make new friends.

Perhaps you can help us?

This is an exciting opportunity to join a unique society; it is a chance for you to volunteer for a service that is highly valued by the student body. We hold training sessions towards the start of Michaelmas and Lent terms each academic year. We have two different ways in which you can volunteer with us. You can either:

Volunteer to be a Call Taker

You have the opportunity to join our call taking team. This is an anonymous role which will require you to commit to two night shifts per term, and will primarily involve answering calls, emails and Instant messages between 10pm and 8am. If you would like to apply for this position please click the link below. For more details about this position please email [email protected]

Call taker applications are currently closed, but will reopen in October 2017

Or

Volunteer with our Publicity Team

We are also offering the opportunity to be part of our publicity team. We are looking for enthusiastic and innovative students to help us publicise Lancaster Nightline across campus, and bring the service to the forefront of student life. This role is non-anonymous, and is about increasing Nightline’s presence on campus and student awareness of Lancaster Nightline’s valuable service. The main responsibility of the role is keeping the Lancaster Nightline name known within the University Campus; this will be achieved by working as a team to invent novel techniques to publicise the service at freshers fair, awareness events and other cross campus events. Please click the link below to apply for this position. For more details about this position please email [email protected]

Apply now

Need even more of an incentive?

Volunteering with Lancaster Nightline counts towards the Lancaster Award.