Our Services
We provide confidential and non-judgemental listening and support helplines 7 days per week. Our phone lines are geared towards offering support and resources to different areas of the community on different days with trained volunteers able to provide more specialised help and support in those areas.
Anyone can call us on any day of course, but we encourage people to use the dedicated helplines when possible as volunteers on those helplines will often have additional training or a background in that area.
We have also provided a chat/IM feature in the past and hope to be able to provide that feature once again shortly. If you want to email us you can at ask@theswitchboard.ie
Our Ethos and Goals
We currently offer listening, support and information to all areas of the LGBTQIA+ community and to their families, friends and allies. We believe at Switchboard that the Marriage Equality Referendum of 2015 was not the end of the story for our communities. Many people still carry trauma around their gender identity or orientation. Many people are still carrying enormous shame about their sexuality and have layers of internalised homophobia that deserves to be acknowledged and healed. Many people in our communities do not fit neatly into a sanitised hetero-normative script and it’s for those people in particular that we provide ongoing support and engagement.
We operate under an ethos of non-judgement, active listening and harm reduction.
Your call is confidential. Read The Switchboard’s confidentiality policy.
Whatever you need to talk about, we are here 365 days per year.
Donations
We rely on donations to cover our running costs and to finance any projects that we undertake.
Whatever donation you can make is greatly appreciated.
You can donate through our PayPal.Me
