ChildLine intern opportunity

All applicants will also be expected to share in ChildLine's core values: 

Courage
Communicating openly and honestly, challenging the status quo and commitment to improving things.

Respect
Respect children and encourage others to do the same. We challenge inequalities regardless of community, race, gender, age, ability, sexuality, faith or circumstances. We treat colleagues with fairness and respect.

Protect
Keeping children safe is everyone's responsibility, and every child should have someone to turn to. We listen to children's views and respond as appropriate.

Trust
We work hard to be someone children and society can trust, and build relationships to help end child cruelty.

We will give you all the support and guidance you need, so that you can get the best out of your time with us at ChildLine. This would include gaining skills through training and keeping track of all the experience you’ve gained whilst in the role.

We would love to be able to involve a wide range of young people to take part in this opportunity, but we also want to make sure that this internship will be used to help you in your future career. We felt that it would be better if this internship supported young people at the age of 16 when they are making the choices about what A-levels to take and what future jobs they might like to do.

If the internship proves successful, we would like to offer the opportunity every year. This will allow you to apply in the future if you are currently under 16.

No, the internship is not exclusively available to only ChildLine service and website users. It is an opportunity for all young people, including those up to the age of 21. 
However, we are only advertising it through ChildLine as we wanted young people, who have supported us and understand the work that we do, to have a great chance to work with us.

We will organise a work plan when the successful young person is chosen, and prioritise meeting Ask Sam and Alex Host for a work related task. Think about what you want to achieve during this internship and how meeting key people will benefit you. If you can explain why it is important we can try our best to arrange this for you.

No, you do not have to tell us your username. We respect your privacy and the conversations you have had with ChildLine counsellors and with your peers. You only have to provide your name and complete the two statements in an email to be eligible for the internship.

We can be very flexible. We understand that some of you will be at college or working part time. We want to do the best we can to make sure the internship works around what you are doing. You can do the 4 hours in one day or split it up during the week.

The working week will be between Monday to Friday. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer for you to come in on the weekends but it can include evenings if you have access to a computer and telephone where you live. You will be asked to come to meetings all across the country, including London, but we would work those around when you are free.

We will look at the application and invite the young people who best demonstrate passion and commitment for ChildLine to an interview in London on the 7th September. The interview will be with the big boss of ChildLine and will be a mix of talking and an activity to test your skills. Staff will help you prepare beforehand and make sure you know what you are doing. We'll also cover the costs of getting there.

Not everyone who applies will get an interview but there are other opportunities to get involved in shaping ChildLine and the participation team will talk to you about this.

Put as much information as you can about your schools, your date of birth, grades if you have done exams, hobbies, interests, any work experience or paid work you have done and clubs you belong to. Really anything that tells us about who you are and what you are interested in. Don’t worry about references; we can follow this up with you when you apply.

We want to encourage as many young people to apply for this internship and hope that where you live does not affect your ability to apply. However, we also want to make sure that you are not traveling excessive distances or very late in the evenings. Up to an hours travel would be the most traveling we would expect you to do.

Business hours are usually between 9.00am-5.30pm. If you require starting earlier or finish outside of these hours please inform us in your application and we can try our best to arrange this. Only some of our bases are open in the evening for late shifts so we cannot guarantee that you would be able to work evenings.

We will choose the intern on the strength of their application; their CV and their performance at interview which will help us decide who the most suitable intern is. It is not based on grades or exam results. We want to see young people who are passionate and supportive of ChildLine's work and what great energy and ideas you can bring to ChildLine.

You can post on the message boards or email participationunit@nspcc.org.uk