We don’t know who you are or where you are – unless you tell us.  And what you say is between you and Runaway Helpline.

We’d like you to trust us enough to talk to us.  It can be hard to look for one to one support with a stranger and describe what’s going on for you and how you’re feeling about things. You are free to tell us what you want.   We will listen and support you so that you can make the right choices for you.  We won’t judge you.

We believe that you have a right to anonymity.  This means you don’t have to give us your name when you contact us, or tell us where you are or where you live.  If you do tell us your details, we will keep your contact with us confidential – only you and Runaway Helpline will know about it.   If we help you we will make a record about the contact with you on our database so, if you contact us again, we can see how we helped you last time.  We will always ask you whether it’s ok to make that record and we won’t store our 1-2-1 web chat with you for more than 6 months.

Just so you know – our phone, email, text and chat systems don’t tell us where you are.

Your phone bill won’t show that you called us, although you would need to delete our 116 000 number from your phone call history or messages.  Chat systems leave cookies on your device so that we know it’s you next time.  If you want you can delete these from your device you can – look here for instructions.

If we do know who you are – because you’ve told us – and we think you or someone else is at risk of serious harm – for example, if you tell us that you might kill yourself – or we know you are in danger, then we would have to consider telling the police so they could help you to be safe.  

We might have to make a special request to our communications providers to find out about where you are.  We will always try to talk to you about why we want to do this because you have a right to know if we are thinking about taking any action which will affect you.

If you have any worries about confidentiality, just ask us at the beginning of your contact with us.

Please remember that our confidentiality applies to calls, emails, texts and chats.

For more information on our confidentiality policy, please email us on 116000@runawayhelpline.local or call us on 116 000. Read more about our terms of use here.

Remember our service is free. You can contact us at any time night or day and we’re confidential.

Runaway Helpline is operated by the charity Missing People.