What is Nightline?

Nightline is a confidential listening and practical information service run by students, for students. We're here to listen not lecture and we're open every night of term, available by phone, text, email or skype chat. All our volunteers are current students at universities in London.

Well, those are the official party lines.

Us in terms of contacting us

Nightline really can listen to you talk about anything. Sure there's the stereotypical student problems of approaching deadlines, stressful exams, homesickness and relationships, but we're here to talk about anything and everything. We also take calls from students at the OU, so we quite frequently listen to calls about feeling lonely without coursemates, family problems and money issues as well. We're entirely anonymous so you can tell us anything, even if you think it's embarrassing or you're not quite sure what you're saying is right- we're here to talk things through no matter the subject.

We're here so you can talk through any problem from start to finish. We won't interrupt or make the conversation about us- in that way, we're not like your friends in that your call is all about you. We'll try and help you explore your options and hopefully by the end of your call you'll feel like someone cares- because we do! We're not counsellors- we're just here to support you through what may be one of the toughest points of your life.

We're entirely confidential as well, so we won't tell anyone outside of Nightline anything about you. Nobody will ever know you've called us- which is a shame because we're great at conversation. You'll never hear a volunteer going 'Oh, last night I heard from this one guy, and he told me all about his essays, and omg so much work!'. It also means you can call us with different problems- we're not going to turn around and say 'Oh no, we've already listened to you.'

There really is nothing too big or too small to call us about. We take suicide calls like a lot of helplines, but we also talk friendship issues, give out numbers for pizza places, help you locate information about medical services- we really can do it all. You do not have to be depressed or suicidal or even unhappy in the slightest way to call us. We're open overnight as well when many helplines are closed, so we often get asked if we can help callers to fall asleep. The only thing we don't do is give advice, because we don't know the whole situation and what would work best for you.

We can however give you information and give you links to other services that will give you advice. We're basically a much cooler version of the yellow pages, plus a listening ear, all rolled into one.

We understand that not all London students will speak English as their first language, and whilst we can't offer services in any other languages, we do offer an instant messaging service or an email service if you'd like to write things down instead of speak out loud.

Us in terms of social media

We exist on facebook, twitter, blogger and instagram primarily to promote the use of Nightline to students, but we also run information campaigns and in person support via our wonderful mascot Neville the bear, who can be found on university campuses giving free hugs.

Our information campaigns are normally in the form of the #askNL chat on twitter, run every other week as a collaboration between nightlines all over the country discussing different topics. The #AskNL tweets are then collated here!

LOVE FROM KATIE XOXOXOXO