PhoneFriend Facts
Teen Talk Facts
PhoneFriend Statistical Results For 2006
Teen Talk Line Statistical Results For 2006
PhoneFriend Quality Exchanges
Teen Talk Quality Exchanges

Teen Talk Line provides a safe and confidential place for teens in the Antelope Valley to call other teens. Peer helping is the focus for teen volunteers that staff the phone Monday through Friday, from 6:30 to 8:30 PM nightly. Teen volunteers are at least fifteen years of age and are supervised by an Adult Supervisor nightly. Calls on this line can be just to talk, to discuss teen dilemmas or to provide community resources to help teens and their families live a higher quality life. Teen Talk averages over a thousand calls a year it also has a thirty-second commercial featured on Adelphia Intercable. Teen Talk targets Jr. High and High School youth with printed material that consists of a phone card the size of a business card, and an 11 x 17 size poster distributed to two school sites a month. Teen Talk features two teens working nightly from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.

PhoneFriend supports children that are home alone occasionally or regularly. The volunteers for PhoneFriend are 13 to 95 years of age. They help children with homework, read them short stories or jokes, pass the time talking or assist with problems that might include minor mishaps, like spilled juice or a broken peanut butter jar. PhoneFriend averages over a thousand calls a year and operates Monday through Friday from 2:30 to 6:30 PM. We distribute our materials to seven local Elementary School Districts. Fifty thousand flyers are distributed to children in school classrooms to remind them to give us a call. PhoneFriend also features a call forwarding option for volunteers with special needs that are house bound. PhoneFriend is broken into two hour shifts 2:30 to 4:30 and 4:30 to 6:30 PM.

Both help lines are services of the Youth Support Association, 501C3 non-profit. Volunteers and employees go through a screening process and attend training After filling out an application volunteers are invited to a monthly training session, one four hours session for PhoneFriends and two four hour sessions for Teen Talk Line. Training is usually held during a weeknight, from 5:30 to 9:30 PM, with dinner being served as part of the training. The training sessions will teach communication skills, how to handle potential crisis calls, phone operations and how to safely come and go from the building. Once training is complete then volunteers are eligible to work the line according to their own schedules. Each volunteer is expected to stay with the help line program a minimum of six months and is committed to working at least once a month. Many volunteers will wish to work more often and that is fine. Volunteers are also expected to find their own substitute from the volunteer roster or to call in if they are unable to work their shift. PhoneFriend has been operating for fourteen years and Teen Talk for seven years. Both lines are supported financially through donations, pledges, annual fund-raisers and continuous grant writing. Both lines are closed for all school holidays, two weeks for winter break, one week for spring break and two weeks in July. Both phone lines use the 949-8662-phone number.
We hope this answers most of your questions, an application is available on this site under how to volunteer. Please fill it out and forward it to us. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely
Deborah Shelton
Executive Director