Childline
Supporting the care of children has long been a goal of Rotary. Our club has just completed a major project to support Childline locally;
Childline is run by the NSPCC and in the first few days following the outrage in Manchester ran over 120 counselling sessions for children.
- Children found the incident scary and they were worried about further attacks taking place and affecting themselves or their friends/family
- Some children were worried to go out in public, or worried about events they had planned in the future
- Children who lived in Manchester were scared that a terror attack could take place close to home, some said that they had not thought terror attacks were a threat to them before but they were now concerned
- Children who were at the concert were worried about the safety of the people who were missing, were shaken up after the event, and were upset about the loss of life
- Some children experienced racist bullying after the attack
- Overall children were distressed, anxious and upset about the event
These are comments made by children, all names and potentially identifying details have been changed to protect the identity of the child or young person. Quotes are created from real Childline contacts but are not necessarily direct quotes from the young person.
I was meant to go to the concert last night but didn’t. I keep thinking “what if?”. I know I was lucky I wasn’t there but I feel guilty. I have anxiety issues and what happened has made me worry about the same thing happening at concerts in the future. – Girl, 16-18
I’m so scared and fed up of everything that is happening, with the attack in Manchester last night and the attack in London in March, I don’t really want to leave the house. I don’t feel safe. I’m meant to go to a concert later this year and now I don’t want to – Girl, age unknown
I keep thinking ‘what if that happened to me?’ and it’s making me scared to go to sleep. It’s very scary because most of the people that got hurt were my age. I can’t stop thinking about the missing people. I keep looking on Twitter for updates but they’re making me feel even worse. – Girl, 16-18
I’m upset because people are making racist comments to me today and talking about the Manchester attack. It’s annoying and unfair because I have nothing to do with the attack. People shouldn’t jump to conclusions and assume that just because someone is a Muslim they are a terrorist. It isn’t fair, Boy, 12
“I feel quite angry that people think that all terrorists are Muslims and I don’t think people should be judged on the colour of their skin. At school today I felt very awkward because of my race. I’m finding the situation really stressful and I need help dealing with it. – Girl, Secondary School Age
