Crisis chat via WhatsApp: Psychological counseling for young people

The crisis chat is a contact point that offers children and young people professional help in dealing with crisis situations. You can find out here how exactly the system works and what advantages and disadvantages it has.

What is the crisis chat?

At the beginning of the corona pandemic, three high school graduates from Berlin founded the crisis chat. This is a contact point that provides psychological support for children and young people up to the age of 25 in all types of crises. In contrast to a hotline, you don’t call the crisis chat, but write to the organization via WhatsApp.

Loud Details of the founders: inside The messenger service was deliberately chosen: it is the best-known medium for making contact among the younger generations. On the other hand, those affected can find telephone calls rather unpleasant – and in some situations it may not be possible at all. Going to therapy costs many even more to overcome.

The advice in the chat format should remove these hurdles and make the offer as low-threshold as possible. The founders hope that as a result, more young people will dare to address their problems.

The idea for the crisis chat arose from the circumstances of the corona pandemic. The lockdowns ensure that children and young people have fewer opportunities to get in touch with friends and external advisors: Sports and leisure facilities are closed and the minimum distance and the mask requirement can be an additional burden for some.

The crisis chat can help you deal with this feeling of isolation and lonliness help. But also with other problems (like Lovesickness, domestic violence, alcohol and drug consumption, arguments, suicidal thoughts …) you can contact the organization.

Crisis chat: How to get help

If you want to get advice from the crisis chat, just write the organization a message. You can find the number on the Website. You don’t have to register or pay any money. The entire offer is free, but you should be under 25 so as not to overstrain the capacity.

A crisis advisor will then contact you. The crisis chat team consists mainly of child and adolescent psychotherapists, social education workers and workers as well as educators. The crisis advisors work on a voluntary basis and are there for you around the clock. So you can report at any time of the day or night. The counseling chat then runs for as long as you wish. You can cancel at any time or report back another time.

By the way, before the consultants start at Krisenchat, they receive training. This includes a starter training, two workshops and a manual. If you are still not satisfied with a consultation, you can simply stop the chat and get in touch a few minutes later. In this way you may get to another contact person.

WhatsApp as crisis advice?

According to the organization, Whatsapp is a much more secure medium than e-mail or SMS, for example. This is due to the end-to-end encryption, which ensures that data is only stored on special servers and the other person’s device.

The data is encrypted both during transmission and on the servers. This means that WhatsApp as a company theoretically never has direct access to your sent messages.

Nonetheless, WhatsApp is used in terms of data protection again and again viewed critically. This is particularly because the messenger service is owned by Facebook – a company that in the past did for some Data scandals has taken care of. However, there are currently no specific indications of data protection gaps in WhatsApp. To what extent you trust the app sufficiently to use it for the crisis chat is ultimately up to you.

Crisis chat: No therapy replacement

So far you can only communicate your problems with Krisenchat via the chat. Calls are not (yet) possible. If this is too impersonal for you, you can use advice hotlines such as the Number against grief To fall back on. You can also find more tips and information on contact points for children and young people on the Pharmacy survey website.

Finally, you should make yourself aware that the crisis chat no substitute for therapy represents. During therapy, you will have regular discussions and will be looked after by a specific contact person. This may make it easier to build trust and also to address unpleasant problems. Therapists also have the option of accompanying you over a longer period of time instead of just chatting with you for a few hours.

So if you feel that you need support from an external, professionally trained person, you shouldn’t be afraid to inquire about therapy options. A first step is also to approach social workers at your school or in a youth center.

Since it is sometimes not easy to get a timely appointment for therapy, contact points such as the crisis chat are a good alternative. The decisive advantage here is that someone will contact you immediately and offer their help, rather than weeks or weeks Have to wait months.

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