STAMMA's helpline services — here for everyone

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Shouting about the STAMMA support services and our volunteers this Helplines Awareness Day.

This Friday, 23rd February, is the second annual Helplines Awareness Day. Organised by Helplines Partnership, it's a day when we celebrate the unseen but vital work helplines provide to help people through difficult times. One of our volunteers has kindly written this piece.

Volunteering on the STAMMA helpline allows me to pass on my experiences to help parents, children, teenagers and adults seeking help and emotional support with stammering. It is challenging, sometimes very emotional for both caller and myself, but incredibly rewarding.

STAMMA has three helpline channels which are here for anyone affected by stammering. We've got the telephone service (call free on 0808 802 0002, the webchat, and email (help@stamma.org). You can use whichever you feel comfortable with. We get plenty of repeat callers who switch between channels and use whichever feels right for them on that day.

Here's a flavour of the sort of conversations we have:

• The middle-aged man stressed by covering up his stammer and avoiding speaking situations so that no-one realises.
• The parent whose 3-year-old child spoke fluently until last week, but now struggles to get words out.
• The student wanting to connect with others who stammer in their university town.
• The young manager who just gave a presentation in their new job and is chuffed that they felt able to tell the audience about their stammer before they started.
• The person in their seventies who'd never before held a conversation about their stammer.
• The woman who phones to 'warm up' her talking before she heads out for another day at work.
• The young employee, reporting being ridiculed in a meeting.
• The parent asking if there's support for their daughter in GCSE language exams.
• A job-hunter who stammers calling to practise interview skills.
• Enquiries about therapies, courses and support — on behalf of children or from adults who may have stammered for decades and decided to revisit what's available.

Contact us too if you just want to chat

You don't need to have a particular question to get in touch — maybe you just want to chat about stammering with someone who won't judge how you're choosing to live with it. Contact us if you're feeling isolated or just want to let off steam. Conversations often lead to contacts with the wider stammering community — perhaps exploring links to local groups or an online support network.

Rest assured that whoever answers your call will 'get' stammering. Our services are staffed by trained volunteers who either stammer, have a relative who stammers, or have worked in the field. I think this is very helpful because it gives the caller confidence that they are speaking to someone who understands what they are going through either in their own lives or with their children. We know what it's like. We understand the concerns that others might have no clue about.

Whatever your connection to stammering, our helpline's here. It isn't just people who stammer or parents who contact us. A big shout out to those teachers who've got in touch to make sure they're saying the right thing to a child who stammers, or to find out how to build a stammer-supportive school environment. Also to employers asking how best to support job candidates who stammer in interviews, or colleagues in the workplace.

Last year we held over 1,200 conversation across the helpline, webchat and email support services. We're open Monday-Thursday from 10am-2pm and 4pm-8pm. 

Whatever stammering means to you, we're here.