Our Work
Youth Hotline / Community Radio
(Date to Date)
Community Radio
In 2022, OVSA and Vibe FM Community Radio Station in KwaMashu launched their partnership to reach out to young people in their communities and help them build their resilience in the wake of several devastating catastrophes.
While communities were still dealing with the COVID-19 economic stress and loss of loved ones, South Africa faced devastating flooding. This resulted in the loss of at least 425 lives and widescale internal displacement. The floods had a hugely distressing impact on young people and children, which was exacerbated as this notably came after the terrifying unrest and looting of July 2021. The unrest and violence during this time, left many young people, families and businesses in tatters, displaced and/or injured.
Unable at that time, to continue with the full-time engagement of our beneficiaries in schools, OVSA and VIBE FM, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to empowering youth with skills development and education – developed and aired a weekly 1-hour, interactive, educational talk show. This live programme offered health education, and situational updates, hosted a Q&A slot, and provided much-needed information and a platform to share personal perspectives.
The programme was well-received, with many young people calling in and sending voice notes; often influencing the content production process as a result. This was an unexpected and hopeful resilience shift in the power traditionally held by presenters and producers, as our young callers actively shaped discourse in line with what they were experiencing on the ground.
YOUTH HOTLINE: 3-in-1 infectious disease outreach -COVID, TB and HIV.
The YOUTH HOTLINE was developed in 2020/2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as an additional informational resource for young people needing information and psychosocial support during this time. The hotline was initially COVID-19 focused, but its scope quickly expanded to offer additional support on a range of health issues, including HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Gender-based Violence (GBV). The service offered a dedicated 0800 number, multi-lingual call centre agents from Care Works, and an Infectious Diseases Specialist Nurse, who was able to bring a wealth of knowledge to the project, as well as a Social Worker and a Lay Counsellor. The Hotline was free, available after-hours, and provided anonymity; important features for our young callers, many of whom were still in school, and did not have access to data or phones, and could have felt awkward or fearful when addressing sensitive health issues. Calls that came in outside of OVSA operating hours, would be directly diverted to Care Works for support.
Research
At the time, research conducted before the establishment of the Hotline investigated the need for the Youth Hotline and the extent to which the perceived need could be addressed. Interviews were conducted with the Hotline Programme Manager, the Hotline call centre agents and Care Works, which is the organisation that operates a call centre to which youth hotline calls were diverted outside of OneVoice South Africa (OVSA) operating hours. Learner feedback was collected from eight learners by OVSA Facilitators, as part of a separate, independent study, which investigated the impact of the COVID-19 hard lockdown on learners who attended township secondary schools, and the need for a Hotline as a means of support. In addition, hotline callers, who gave consent to be contacted for research purposes, were called and asked to provide feedback on the service they had received. Call monitoring data was also collected by the Hotline call centre agents and captured in a tool designed for the project. Note that only call centre agents contracted by OVSA collected monitoring data; Care Works agents were not contracted to do so.
The Need for Support
The increase in GBV during the COVID-19 pandemic is an example of an additional source of stress for young people already dealing with numerous social issues daily, such as poverty, criminality and access to clean water and sanitation. Many young people in the target group live in cramped conditions, which exacerbated these issues during the lockdown and necessitated the need for additional support. A call centre agent, who is also a lay counsellor, indicated that many sexually active adolescents were afraid to ask questions because they felt embarrassed and worried that they would be judged by family members or nurses at their local clinics. She explained that “they just need someone to talk to” and indicated that many callers stuttered on the line at the beginning of a call before they felt comfortable talking openly about their concerns. Another agent explained that in her experience young people needed the individual attention offered by a hotline, as many of their questions were very personal and not necessarily applicable if discussed in a group setting. For example, there was a caller who wanted to know about an ‘HIV injection’ that she had heard about. She was misinformed and the HPV vaccine was explained to her, as it was likely she had mistaken ‘HIV’ for ‘HPV’.
Some Findings
The majority (69%) of callers were girls and young women. The results of the independent study found that girls were likely more badly affected by the lockdown than boys were, given that they were required to help with household chores and thus did not have enough time for schoolwork and were also at greater risk of sexual and other abuse, often at the hands of male family members.
Adolescents aged between 14 and 15 years old made up the highest proportion of callers, as well as the age group targeted during the marketing of the hotline service on community radio.
A large proportion of callers had heard about the Youth Hotline from the OVSA Facilitator working in their school, however, almost half of callers noted that they had heard about the hotline from a friend or through word of mouth. This was encouraging as it suggested that young people were talking about the hotline and its benefits.
Thematic Focus
Most of the calls that came through the OneVoice hotline were related to COVID-19, which was the focus of the hotline and the biggest concern for most callers. Many of the callers expressed their fear of the virus and wanted to find out where it had come from, what the symptoms were and where they could get tested. There were also questions as to whether COVID-19 was painful and whether there was any treatment available. Two callers asked specifically about COVID-19 being ‘in the air’ and asked for an explanation of what this meant.
The calls that related to HIV/AIDS and TB were mainly centred around concerns of being infected with COVID-19 at the same time as having HIV or TB. These callers had questions about the differences between the viruses and what would happen if one was already infected with HIV or TB and then contracted COVID-19 as well. One caller had an HIV/AIDS-specific question, wanting to know what the difference between HIV and AIDS was.
Calls that fell into the ‘other’ category covered a range of topics:
Feminine Health Concerns
There were several calls regarding feminine health concerns, which included menstruation irregularity, and a question concerning when to take a pregnancy test (in the morning or afternoon) and how to determine whether the test was positive or negative. Another caller called with concerns about the possibility of having an STI as she had some worrying symptoms. This caller was referred to the nearest clinic for treatment.
Covid Testing and Treatment
A large proportion of callers requested COVID testing and treatment information, mainly concerning COVID-19, with 28% of calls seeking advice on what to do or how to handle a particular situation. At the end of October, there were concerns across the country that the government would revert to stricter lockdown measures, which resulted in a sharp increase in callers asking whether the country was going back into a Level 5 lockdown.
Interrupted Education Concerns
Several calls were from learners who were worried about missing school and falling behind. They wanted to know when they would be able to go back to school and continue with their education. This was in line with the findings of the independent review with which OVSA was involved, which found that learners were concerned about passing the year, as their home environments were not suitable for quiet study and lacked the support they received from their teachers at school.
Foster Care Grants and Abuse
The calls regarding emotional and/or psychological support included questions about the foster care grant and information about support groups for children who were being abused at home. There was one caller who wanted to be referred to a social worker in her area. The Hotline agent used OVSA’s Referral Network and provided this referral information to the caller in a follow-up call.
Niche Service
OVSA’s projects centre around dialogues with young people, on health and lifestyle issues. OVSA and its staff have developed a deep understanding of the needs of young South Africans, especially adolescents, and the challenges they face as they move out of childhood, through adolescence and into early adulthood. The development of the Youth Hotline drew on this extensive experience. Whilst there are other hotlines available in South Africa, they are not aimed at young people, and adolescents especially. For example, Lifeline is aimed at adults and Childline caters for children. OVSA has experience in working with adolescents and its staff are trained in communication with this group specifically. The Hotline was positioned as a credible source of information in an environment where misinformation was rife. As with all OVSA projects, the aim is to provide young people with the right information and enable them to make the right decisions for their lives and futures.
Conclusion
The need for the Youth Hotline was evidenced by the call centre agents and the feedback from the callers themselves. OVSA was well-positioned to address the informational and psychosocial needs of vulnerable adolescents and young people who reached out. The technical challenges associated with starting a service of this nature were largely overcome in the initial period of project implementation, and opportunities for improvement were subsequently identified. Although the hotline was closed when COVID-19 was no longer an acute issue, the hotline was at a stage where it could go to scale and be expanded.
