Transcript

This is my transcript for the interview. I still have to re-read it, as I must have used some short hand when transcribing. I separated it by clip, also located which sound file goes with what. Towards the end it is just sound, so no footage to go with it.

Transcript

Kids Help Phone

Veronique Houde

ROOM NOISE- STE- 0004

MVI_6283        Sound File: STE- 0005

Okay so, I have a BA in psychology, I studied at McGill University, and I graduated about five years ago. And I also have, I did a bit of volunteer experience when I was at McGill on a help line, and so then I traveled the world a bit and I started sending out my CV’s randomly and it just so happened that I got a call back from here and I  have been here for three years now.

I think I was drawn to the field because psychologist just always interested me even when I was in high school. The only thing that I anted to do was become a psychologist

And so I just went to McGill, in psychology, and I never thought I could actually work in the filed when I graduated because it really hard to get into the filed when you’re a psych student.

Um… I was fortunate enough to work her and I just really enjoy… uh well no I don’t think enjoy is the right word; it’d be strange to enjoy seeing people suffer. But I have a lot of empathy for people who go through a hard time, and I find that I’m good at what I do and I like getting better. And So if I can help them out, why not?

MVI_6284   Sound File: STE 0006

Okay so, I worked on cruise ships about a year after coming out of university when I was working at a nowhere job at a bank and I didn’t know what I was going to do with myself, I decided to take some time to get to know myself more.

And I never really traveled so I thought it might good opportunity to get paid to travel so I started working on a cruise shop and I did that for about a year, burned myself out, uh its very hard to work with kids on a cruise ship, its crazy, there’s a lot of kids and you always have to be on top, you always have to you know, go go go, you have zero privacy, but, I burned myself out but I learned a lot about myself,

And I think that when your completely disconnected from your house and from your friends and from your family and you work with people from different cultures your kind of confronted at the best and worst of yourself, and uh when I came back is when I found the job here.

MVI_6285     Sound File: STE- 000-7

How do I describe my job at kids help phone?

Well, kids help phone is a phone line that anybody can call. Its uh, you know its free, I like that. And you can reach people from Montreal, and from the Yukon. You can reach people from B.C and really far off in Nova Scotia and PEI. So I like the accessibility of KHP, and it’s not only a phone line it’s a website

And uh, I think what it means to work at KHP is to just be there for problems that kids might not even think are important enough for adults to listen to

Most kids who call here, they had a fight with their friend, or they, they’re having a hard time studying.  They’re BF broke up with them or their pregnant and they don’t know what to do… about that…

And they always start by saying, “I don’t think my problems big enough,” but, I think it’s a reflection on what we as a society think is important, and I think its really important for us to let them have a chance to talk about t because when your 12 and your friend broke up with you its probably the worst feeling in the world.  And as adults we kind of minimize that because we do through it a lot, but when it’s the first time or second time we go through it it’s painful.

And so, I, I think the most satisfying calls are always the… Small ones. You know, a kid is a first time caller whose very show, and might seem to think that we don’t have time for him but at the end of the call you could see just the relief, and it might have only taken 10 minutes, but just to give that chance to that kid for 10 minutes to solve his problem, is the best thing in the world.

MVI- 6286   Sound File: STE- 0008

Uh you want me tell you story?

I think this a call that I often tell people because it always makes me cry and I think that people they need to see us counselors get moved by the stories because… sometimes there very touching for years.

It was, I think, my first year, probably the first few months that I was working at KHP and the phone rang in English and I answered, “you’ve reached  Kids Help Phone.”

And It was this little voice, a 13 year old girl, and she just blurted out a question, her question was “What’s the definition of rape?”

And so I didn’t exactly know what to think about it, cause I don’t know, maybe she was pranking , maybe you know she was testing me or maybe she was doing homework,  I had no idea where that question was coming from but I gave her a definition of rape and she just went silent, and then 5 sec later she went, Oh okay

And so I asked her if there’s anything she wanted to talk about and she said”no, no it’s okay,” okay bye and she hung up.

And uh… So I kind of didn’t really think about it. But five mines later my phone rings again, and back then we didn’t really answer very many phone calls in English we did mostly French calls so when the phone would ring in English it means the kid had waited a few mins but its not like that anymore, but um..

And so I answered the phone “hello you’ve reached kids help phone. And she said to me “okay, I’m ready to talk now.”

And I recognized her voice right away, and I was kind of stunned because the first thing that went through my mind was that I cant believe she got me again because that night we must have been about 25 counsellors on the floor throughout all of Canada. And so I just said how come you called back, what’s going on?

We talked for about 45 minutes, and what had happened was that she was going to her first party and there was a guy that was in a class she’d had a crush on for two years, he invited her and she was really excited. Her mom wasn’t too sure at first about the party, so her mom finally gave her the permission to go but she had to meet the parents before hand and she had to meet him and so they had gone out, all two families together, and that meant she had drove her daughter to the birthday party..

And while at the birthday party, the boy she had a crush on brought her to his bedroom, and they start kissing and obviously what do you think she’s going omg omg this guys kissing me and its awesome. But then it went a bit too far and he started doing things that were a bit more graphic, I’m not going to go into details, but she didn’t like it and she tried to ask him to stop but he didn’t listen it, and he ended up raping her.

And um, she came home, and she had called kids help phone about 10 mins after coming home, and you know,  she wasn’t sure if it was rape or not. She wanted to kiss him she agreed to go into his room; she’s liked this guy for two years, so she kind of felt guilty. She felt that, you know, in a way, um, she probably … thought it was her fault. And so um you know, we were able to talk about that and just make things clear, that it wasn’t her fault, that he went further then she wanted him to and its not because you wanted to kiss a guy that all of a sudden your asking for more.

And at the end of the call I was able to convince her to go see her mom and to talk to her mom about what had happened. She was feeling guilty because she knew that her mom was stressed out, she did not want to worry her mom even more or hurt her mom, but in the end they decided to go to the hospital together so she could get taken care of physically.

And um, I hung up thinking that… who else would she have talked to about that? She was so shy, she felt so guilty about it, and um (……) I feel privileged, two years later.

MVI_ 6287   Sound File:  STE- 0009

So is uh, mental health taboo for kids… I do think it is. For teenagers at least, it’s not good to be depressed, its not good to be anxious or to be lonely, in fact its not good to be anything but happy. I think that we have so much pressure in our society to always be upbeat, always be happy, always be focused and thinking and when somebody’s down///

Somebody’s sad or worried, than people around then people around them don’t know how to handle them. I think we’re all like that, we don’t know how to handle ourselves when we’re not feeling good and…

End at 0.49 seconds

MVI_6288 (No footage, sound only) STE- 0010

If kids help phone didn’t exist I think that people would create a service like kids help phone.

Right now, in pretty much every country in the world, there is a help line like kids help phone, and I think that kids do need a place where they can call where they won’t necessarily see the adult that they are talking to. They don’t have to face the reaction, because kids are very ashamed of what they are going through. It’s the first time they’re going through it, no body likes wants to talk about feeling depressed and lonely, cause I think we don’t know how to handle ourselves when were not feeling good, we always have to be happy and always have to be doing well and when we’re not we don’t know what to do; and so… kids need that.

Right now I think services are changing, and so kids are drawing less to the phones and more to computers. And so how can kids help phone uh move forward and progress wit the kids, that’s what we’re looking at now if we can develop our services on the computer.

Once again, it’s just really important to be there where the kids are, just to be able to get them to express what they are feeling inside.

It’s a lot easier when you’re a teenager to talk about your problems then bottling them up for 20 years and having to deal with all of that plus the repercussions when your 40.

// end at 1.39 sec.